


Twelve Years

by RhymeAndTreason



Category: Hana no Miyako!, Tsukihime
Genre: AU: Far Side Route frankenstein + HnM, Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Dreams and Nightmares, F/F, F/M, Ghost Vampires, Ghosts, I don't know how to tag... anything. but especially this, Vampires, bold of me to write a fic where bad writing is a notable theme when I am a bad writer, no beta we die like shiki
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:28:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 27,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23833138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RhymeAndTreason/pseuds/RhymeAndTreason
Summary: Twelve years have passed since Shiki returned to the Tohno Mansion. Twelve years have passed since his life unraveled and began again. But there's always some kind of trouble, isn't there?
Relationships: Arima Miyako/Nanaya Shiki (Hana no Miyako!), Hisui & Kohaku, Tohno Shiki/Tohno Akiha, one-sided Kuzuki Ami/Arima Miyako, one-sided Yumizuka Satsuki/Tohno Shiki
Kudos: 4





	1. Ha

**Author's Note:**

> My fic 'celebrating' the twelfth anniversary of the Remake being announced is late, but so is the Remake, so it's fine. Yeah. That makes sense. Right?  
> Like I said last time, where Eleven Years was Near Side (mainly Arcueid) and Tsukihime 2, this is Far Side (mainly Akiha) and Hana no Miyako. It's also a little more ambitious than Eleven Years, and hopefully a little better. I haven't gotten as much writing practice in this year as I'd hoped I would, so it's probably not as much better as it could've been.
> 
> ... Also, I didn't actually put a lot of thought into merging Far Side with Hana no Miyako, which is supposed to occur five years after the Near Side, and so a lot of stuff on that side doesn't make sense. Don't worry about it. Ami especially doesn't make sense, but she never does, so whatever. Speaking of, her role in the story was originally meant for Yoshiaki Mikougami, but I decided that I didn't want to go into my headcanons regarding him here and there wasn't enough of him in canon to work with otherwise, so I wrote him out and stuck Ami in instead.
> 
> "Hey, don't you have something else you were supposed to work on?" Yeah but consider the following: Shut Up.  
> ... Okay, but seriously, I took a Creative Writing course in the autumn that ate all my writing time, and once that was over, I'd gotten too distracted and had no idea what I was doing with Man And Beast anymore and couldn't get back into the swing of it. I'll give it another shot once this is done.
> 
> ... Now that chapter one is done, I'm gonna focus on my art (and playing the FF7 Remake) for a bit, but I swear to god I won't do the thing where I abandon writing for months that I've done with... uh, every other multi-chapter fic I've tried to write.

Blearily, Shiki Tohno opened his eyes.

The autumn sun was still only beginning its trek across the sky, and it was so bright he had to turn away immediately. His back was sore and warm almost to the point of burning, too, and as sleep fled his mind, he realised he’d been reclining in one of the stiff-backed metal chairs in the garden. He must’ve been lazing away the morning, and accidentally drifted back to sleep. A soft breeze flowed through the courtyard, carrying with it the soothing scents of Kohaku’s flowers, and gently rustling the leaves of the forest.

Softly, slightly, barely audible, the sound of snoring reached his ear, and he smiled lopsidedly.

In the chair next to his, Akiha was snoring away. Her mouth hung open, and her back was slouched inelegantly. It was not a position she would’ve been caught dead in, if she’d had any say in it at all. If she woke up now, she’d be mortified. 

Shiki wasn’t about to wake her, though. Instead, he silently rejoiced that she had relaxed enough to fall asleep at all - she was always working herself to the bone, and she not only deserved but  _ needed  _ a nice, long rest.

He sighed peaceably, gave Akiha’s silken black hair one gentle stroke, and quietly exited the scene.

… Now, wasn’t there something he had meant to do while Akiha was too distracted to notice?

* * *

Somewhere else entirely. Our story’s leading lady - a tiger-devil of a woman, once-protagonist of her own hammer-fisted tale or two - stirred and groaned in her sleep, as if struck by a sudden premonition of the adventure to come.

… and continued to doze. The years had seen her reckless adventurousness doused by depression, risen anew, and finally mellowed with time; and she found quiet days were a precious treasure. There was nowhere she needed to go, and nowhere else she would rather be than wrapped in downy blankets and in turn wrapped around her wife.

… that word shone star-bright even in the fog of sleep.  _ Wife _ … Miyako giggled a little - not a sound often heard from her staid countenance. It had been a few months now, but the novelty hadn’t worn off at all.

She pulled the tall, spidery, warm, and still-fast-asleep body of the ginger girl a little closer, and pressed her face into Shiki Nanaya’s shoulder. No, Shiki Arima now, Miyako reminded herself.

So no, she had no intention of leaving her bed. Not when, just today, she could stay with her wife in the little apartment they shared, untouched by any kind of responsibilities or anxieties.

Even the burning in her blood had quieted to no more than an easily ignored smoulder.

_ Mmm… _

“Love you,” she mumbled softly into Shiki’s ear as she drifted away once more, and was delighted - in those few sleepy seconds - when she received a response in the form of a soft kiss on her forehead.

… She dreamed of strange things. White strings like spider’s thread, tea running in her veins, and a beloved face with hidden eyes.

* * *

By now, the third star of this tale - a melancholy bit player always relegated to the background, less the writer of her fate and more the page upon which her fate was written, but nonetheless saviour of more lives than she knew - was well-awake and hard at work. She was always hard at work. It was occasionally a little baffling, that a residence of merely four people should generate such a wealth of housework. It was well and truly endless, and even the rooms nobody had touched, it seemed, would sometimes fall into disarray entirely spontaneously.

… But Hisui did not particularly mind. She would probably have done this job even if it wasn’t hers. She took pride in keeping things clean, and she liked the work.

So she kept to what she was doing, which, at this particular moment in time, was tidying up the mansion library. Akiha had all but torn it to shreds the night before, looking for one book or another - Hisui wasn’t sure why, but assumed it must have something to do with the novel she was writing - and there was no shortage of work to be done.

She moved with stiff efficiency. She never moved more than was needed, and she moved exactly as quickly as to strike the perfect balance between speed and thoroughness. Her face betrayed neither thought nor feeling as she went about her work - except for one moment, when a cloud of dust got in her face.

As she tidied the books away, she ran over her schedule for the day in her head. After this… Would be lunchtime, right? She should go check in on Kohaku. Maybe there was something she could do to help. Her cooking had improved a little over the years, she felt. Although… more than a decade of practice, and so little had changed that she could still burn water if her attention slipped.

… More than a decade, and so little had changed.

She closed a book that had been left open on the table, carefully not looking too closely at the frankly unspeakable illustrations and unable to keep her face from reddening a little, and went to replace it where it belonged, resolving to finish up quickly so that he could go see her sister.

“... Not too quickly. Carelessness is the enemy,” she reminded herself. Nonetheless… today, she just wanted to spend as much time with her sister as she possibly could. It would not do to dilly-dally.

* * *

And the fourth of four dramatis personae. A seventh-born, bewitching and strange little magpie of stranger lineage. A girl with no connection of any true substance to the matters this story concerns. A girl who wielded red-dyed thread like a lasso and clambered along it, pushing her way into a portrait she hadn’t been painted into by sheer force of curiosity and fascination.

Ami sauntered outside with a vapid grin on her face and a blaze of mischievous intent in her eyes. Each step she took was wildly out-of-sync with the rest - out of pace and out of place. Not just her perpetually-straying feet, but her entire body swung and swayed like sticks on strings, shaken by a child trying to make it look like a person as they walked. Not quite like a ragdoll, which swayed at the slightest outside force; rather, full of energy, and throwing it all into every little motion.

She stopped at the foot of the walk, spun on her heels, and waved an enthusiastic goodbye to the eldest of her five elder brothers.

“Sorry, but I gotta jet if I’m gonna make it in time! Say ‘hi’ and ‘congrats’ to Eri and Meddy when they get back from their thing for me! Ta léme argótera!”

Tisander, leaning against the doorframe, yawned and waved lazily back, “Right, right. You run and see your girlfriend or whatever. Mama’s making a ‘surprise’ stew for dinner tonight, so feel free to not come back for a while.”

“Hey, hey, she ain’t my girl, y’know. Not yet, anyway!” Ami grabbed her bright-red cheeks and smiled… an expression that instantly turned sour as she thought about her mother’s unique cooking, “Ahahaha…! You never know, Mama’s cooking is strange, but it’s super good sometimes too!” And after another wave, she was fully on her way, disappearing quickly around the corner. She twirled a lollipop around in her fingers, then popped it in her mouth and grinned. Time to grab the day by the horns and make it a good goddamn time.

“So-o-o… First, gotta pick something up for Eri and Meddy, it’s their birthday this Friday,” the itinerant witch muttered, counting off on her fingers, “Better get something for Miyako before I go visit her, too… Probably she’d like somethin’ she can eat best, right? Lass likes mapo tofu, don’t she? I can prolly find a restaurant sellin’ that. Third, um… uh... Oh, yeah yeah yeah! I wanted to pick up some new brass knuckles!” Ami nodded enthusiastically.

“‘N’ after that, it’s right off t’ see the little ghoulie girlie. Yeah, yeah, yeah!” Ami stretched her arms to the sky, pausing a second to exult in her expectations of a good day, and cracked her knuckles.

She took off at a breakneck pace, skipping girlishly. Places to be, things to do, and a half-oni to woo. And no time to waste!

* * *

… Yeah, there was definitely… something. He was certainly, without a doubt, supposed to be doing something while Akiha was otherwise occupied. Something important Shiki needed to take care of before she could start worrying about it, because Akiha was working herself to the bone - as usual - and didn’t need anything else on her plate.

But… what was it?

… Mysterious rumours around town, right. Whispers of a demon and a cult worshipping it, taking people in the dead of night for some horrible ritual. It was important, and he needed to solve it sooner rather than later.

**Are you really sure about that?**

Yeah, it had to be that. How had he forgotten? It seemed a weird thing to be uncertain of.

Well then. He’d better go grab his knife, just in case.

… Ah.

“... Master?”

And the second he’d exited his room - knife in hand, of course - he’d almost literally bumped into Hisui. She didn’t look quite as surprised as he had thought she might, which was in itself not that much of a surprise. Still, he clumsily and quite uselessly hid his knife behind his back.

“H-hey, Hisui! Fancy meeting you here, huh? What are the odds?”

“... I am here perfectly according to schedule,” Hisui said with narrowed eyes and a feeling of disappointment and exasperation that was practically palpable, “... will you be returning home late tonight?”

“Ri… right, yeah, haha,” Shiki grinned awkwardly, “Well, um…”

Hisui brushed right past him into his room; “The back gate is unlocked. I will refrain from informing Mistress Akiha where you’ve gone, although I expect that won’t slow her down at all.” Her voice was dull and heavy.

Shiki heaved a sigh of relief; he’d been expecting Hisui’s reaction to be much worse. Unspoken disapproval so heavy and forceful it might as well have been a nail bat was not the worst Hisui was capable of. Her anger wasn’t dangerous in the way that Akiha’s was, nor scary like Kohaku’s, but as a psychological attack, it was beyond compare.

… or more to the point, he just couldn’t bear to upset her.

**Then don’t let yourself get hurt. That would upset her more than anything else you’re capable of.**

The thought rang clearly in his brain as he snuck past the garden and into the forest beyond, making straight for the back gate. Well, it wasn’t like he’d been planning to let himself get killed today, but he’d be damned if he didn’t return home safe and sound; for the sake of his family if not for himself.

Within the hour, he was wandering the downtown streets. Even though it was autumn, the city was as warm as summer. Throngs and throngs of people filed the sidewalks, as if a movie studio with a bad case of sunk cost fallacy had spent too much money on extras. It was practically ideal for a daytime search. 

Questions, questions, and more questions. Stopping people in the street to ask if they’d seen anything strange, making inquiries to the owners of small shops, stopping at an internet cafe to browse for information on the net. Keeping an eye out all the while for any one of a million possible visual tells - perhaps he’d pick up a tail, see a strange sigil on the alley walls, find a neon sign proclaiming “cult headquarters here!” Well, probably not that last one. If only he were that lucky. Still, he was making more progress than he would’ve doing things the way he had when he’d been younger and more able (a thought that made him laugh after thinking about it a second. He was only 29, young and healthy. “Younger and more able” indeed), running around aimlessly at night, expecting to simply stumble across the villains. It worked well enough with vampires, who had to wander the streets in the dead of night themselves, but for a bunch of wackjob humans who had, unfortunately, stumbled upon real power? This was much easier.

And speaking of “easier…”

Shiki gave the building an askance look.

**A neon sign indeed.**

It wasn’t a big place, but it sure was out of place. He’d found his way here after an age of collecting tiny pieces of information and putting them together, but looking at the pamphlets posted in the window of Kishuku Antiques, he had to wonder if running around at random wouldn’t have been just as quick. The window had just about ceased to be a window, there were so many pamphlets blocking it. All of them said about the same thing, as far as Shiki was concerned: things like, “Do you feel lost, alone, helpless?” “Find Salvation in the blood of the King Tiger!” or “Ask inside if you want to join the demon cult!” Although probably not the exact same words as that last one.

“Hey!” Said Shiki with a jaunty wave of his hand as he pushed through the door, “I uh, couldn’t help but notice all the cu- uh, the pamphlets hanging in your window. Do you, uh, know why “Salvation” is capitalized like that?”

The shopkeeper gave him a flat look over the rim of his squarish glasses, barely looking up from the book he was reading.

It was dead silent inside and smelled horribly of dust with a concerning undercurrent of blood that a normal person probably would’ve missed, but mostly it was a pretty typical-looking antique shop. Maybe more Chinese stuff and tigers than usual - cult stuff, Shiki would have assumed, if not for the fact that his little sister collected similar things and was definitely not in any cult he knew of - but mostly there were shelves and shelves of dusty knick-knacks and bric-a-brac. The front desk was at the far back, with a storeroom door hanging ajar behind it.

The shopkeeper continued to silently glare for another thirty seconds, and returned to his book.

“Ahahaha...“ Shiki scratched the back of his head, waving awkwardly with his other hand, “Sorry, sorry… but I really did want to ask about those.”

The shopkeeper’s gaze returned to him, turned suspicious.

“What?” He gruffly said.

“Well, mainly stuff like… do you all have some kinda death wish? You all stumble onto some magic and you think you can go ahead and-”

A flash of metal cut through the air. Shiki saw the knife as if it was in slow-motion, and was already moving before it left the cultist’s hand. He leaned his weight on his back foot, preparing to spring. He drew his own knife from his pocket, flipping it open and gripping it in his right hand. The flying knife was getting closer, closer, and-

He was gone. To say it was all over in an instant would be a grievous understatement.

“... Do shit like that, yeah. Listen,” said Shiki. He had an exasperated look on his face and the shopkeeper by the collar, “you’re an idiot who’s been using magecraft for, like, two weeks and you think you can handle whatever nonsense you’re up to when all it takes is one demon hunter to take your head? You and your buddies aren’t gonna hurt anyone but yourselves, but I’m still gonna stop you. You gotta be  _ alive  _ to learn from your mistakes, you know. You gonna help me help you, or…?”

* * *

“Hmm hm hmm~ hm hm hmm~” Miyako hummed happily while she picked the ingredients for her lunch out of the fridge. It had been terribly, terribly tempting to just make pork dumplings - her favourite food - but she wanted to do something special for Shiki (which was probably the only thing that had gotten her out of bed before her wife). So here she was, carefully measuring out the spices and chopping the vegetables with aplomb, pre-heating the pot and beating the eggs. This was going to be the best damn chawanmushi anyone had ever made. It was going to be  _ goddamn perfect _ .

Ah! And the tea! The tea had to be perfect too! It was the key to everything; Shiki was fond of chawanmushi, but there was nothing she liked better than good matcha. Now, where did they keep the powder again…

Miyako laughed. She couldn’t help it. How long had it been? There’d been a time when it seemed like she’d never laugh again, but now she was happy and lively and could barely even remember… remember what, even? So, as she set to work doing something she loved for someone she loved, of course she laughed.

The sound was low and slow, and beautiful in the way a strange jungle flower blooming in the furthest reaches is. An answer echoed back from around the kitchenette corner - a chiming giggle that Miyako loved to death. Shiki rounded the corner and yawned hugely as she did. She was still wracked by bedhead and wearing her pajamas, and she looked asleep on her feet.

“Mmm… is that matcha I smell? I could really use the -” she yawned again “- pick-me-up...”

“Sure is!” Miyako grinned, slouching backwards and waving around her chashaku. “Geez, sleepyhead, it’s noon and you’re just crawling out of bed? Lazy! So lazy! It’s a good thing you’re cute as hell, you know. Hey, aren’t you supposed to be faster than me?”

Whatever she may have said, Miyako still dutifully served up the tea and pecked her wife on the cheek as she placed the chawan in front of her.

Shiki only laughed “I’m only fast on my feet, and you know it. Besides, don’t you just have too much energy?”

“Aaahhh, that might be true. I don’t stop once I get going, do I? Where does it all come from, I wonder…” Miyako laid her cheek in her palm, as if lost in thought. Not about what the source of her energy and inertia, but about the sight right in front of her. Her wife, sitting at the kitchen table, looking like an angel in the glow of the sun from the window, drinking tea Miyako had made for her, and beaming. Pride and happiness welled in her heart; how had she ever been blessed enough to end up here? At this one perfect moment that she wouldn’t have traded for anything in the world.

“Yeah, not for all the tea in China…” she whispered.

“Hm?”

“Aw, nothing. Just enjoy your drink.”

“Mmhm, I will! You make really good tea, you know.”

“‘Course I do! I’m… uh…” The what? She was…

“By the way… how long’s the chawanmushi been steaming?”

Miyako blinked. That one sentence completely pulverised her thoughts. Slowly, she turned to look at the pot on the stove. 

“... Agh! I totally forgot…! Ahhhh, this is your fault!” Miyako’s voice was rising steadily and filling with panicked tone.

“What? How?”

“You’re too cute! I got distracted!”

“Isn’t that totally on you?” Shiki laughed.

… In the corner of her eye, Miyako saw white thread outside the window.

In the end, the chawanmushi was successfully rescued. A little bit overcooked, and not the perfect dish Miyako had envisioned, but all well and good.

“... You sure you shouldn’t have made more than just this? It’s enough for me, but you eat like an ogre sometimes,” Shiki tilted her head and swirled her spoon idly with one hand, while the other toyed with a piece of string.

“I’ll be fiiiine. I really wanted to focus on making the perfect lunch for you, you know?”

“Mhm, and I’m super grateful, really! I just worry, you know?”

“I know, I know. And talking about worrying, I know what you’re about to say-”

“Just because it’s our day off doesn’t mean we don’t have to worry about real life. There’s a lot of paperwork, and budget to sort out, and we need to find a location, and… so much stuff! If you’re serious about starting a restaurant-!”

“Shiki…” Miyako drawled. She slouched forwards, a crooked, thin, and exasperated smile on her face, “that’s exactly what our day off means. Just you and me and some well-earned rest, okay? No worries for the rest of the day. Real life can’t touch us here.”

Nearby, an electronic bell-chime tolled.

…

…

“... was that the doorbell?”

“I’ll get it…” Miyako sighed, rising from her seat.

And-

In the peephole, a flash of white hair and red eyes. In her heart, a spark of panic became a blaze. Shared blood, shared fate, and-

“Who is it?” Shiki called.

Miyako shook her head and shrugged, “No one, it looks like. Who knows what’s up with that, huh?” And she made her way back to the kitchen, the devil at the door already slipping from her mind.

* * *

Hisui strode into the kitchen, saw her twin hard at work chopping vegetables, and gave Kohaku a nod of greeting.

“May I help?” She asked.

“Oh, Hisui! Great timing. Can you measure out the seasonings and stuff for me? Cookbook’s open to the recipe!”

“Thank you.”

“Ah ah ah, that’s my line! You’re not supposed to thank people for letting you help them. You’re the one doing me a favour, I’m the one who should be thanking you!” Kohaku waved the object in her hands like a teacher’s pointer. The effect was made slightly disconcerting by the fact that it was a large knife.

“... I’m sorry.” Hisui nodded.

“Don’t apologize, either!”

“I see. Sorry.”

Kohaku heaved a long sigh and shook her head, hands on her hips, leaning forward, “Never mind, never mind. Just… Thanks for lending a hand!”

Hisui nodded again, “It’s no trouble.”

The next half-hour passed pleasantly. Hisui said little, focusing entirely on her work but Kohaku, even as she deftly prepared a veritable feast, chattered enough for the both of them -

“Oh, did you watch that new superhero anime that started last spring? I’ve been catching up, it’s so good! I don’t usually go in for Western-style heroes like that, but I really like the relationship between the main heroes - I just can’t get enough of stubborn old-timers who don’t know when to quit even when it’s killing them and handsome young pretty boys with lots of money but more problems. Ah, so cute! They’d make a good couple, don’t you think?”

“I just can’t wait for the new Phantasy Star, you know? Can you believe it’s been more than a decade since I started playing Online? Where does the time go? That game was pretty much my whole life for a while there! You know, I tried to build my own RAcaseal in real life once… Eh? What? I didn’t say anything. Forget about it, forget about it, forget it, forget it!”

“I’ve been trying some new things with my datura. I’m really excited to see how the new ones turn out! If everything works out, I think I could be able to make some really cool stuff out of them. It’ll be even better than way back when, when I… Hm, nevermind! Ufufufu!”

“Oh, the new Gundam show started a couple weeks ago, I think… I’ve been meaning to watch it, but the trailers didn’t really grab me and I haven’t been hearing very good things about it… It’s a shame! A super huge shame! Gundam used to be, like, the best mecha show there was! I can’t believe they could screw it up like that! Ah, it makes me so mad!”

\- and needless to say, Hisui understood nearly none of what her sister said. It was all nonsense to her. She didn’t watch those shows (or any shows) or play those games (or any games) or spend time cooking up shady drugs (or any drugs), and couldn’t relate to anything Kohaku said at all.

She loved every second of it. She could listen to Kohaku ramble for hours on end. Watch each bouncy motion, each wave of her index finger and tilt of her head and each oscillation as she leaned side-to-side. Knowing her sister was happy meant everything to her.

Kohaku smiled at her - a real, genuine smile - and Hisui barely held back from crying.

“Thanks for the help, Hisui! You know, you’re really getting a lot better at cooking. I think Shiki and Mistress Akiha are really going to love lunch today, don’t you agree?”

Hisui nodded.

“Ah, Hisui! You really should try to express yourself more! I know you’re just bursting with joy at how well you’ve done and you can’t wait for Shiki and Akiha to try it, but then you just nod? Where’s all that energy you used to have?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Hisuiiii, stop apologizing!”

“Sor- Um, right. I understand,” Hisui smiled shakily. Her face was still unused to the expression, which had rarely graced it even as the years passed and everything wound down to this perfect happy ending.

Her smile became a little wider, and shook a little less.

“... This really is a perfect happy ending,” she mumbled, “like you always deserved.”

* * *

Okay, so.

“A girl might’ve,” Ami scratched at the back of her head, “gotten a mite distracted, yah?”

She surveyed her surroundings. A crowd had formed, and she couldn’t see if her shopping bags were still where she’d left them. Dammit, if someone had taken them… She’d already gotten delayed so many times! At least this one wouldn’t be her own fault, though, which was a refreshing change of pace after the first delay, which had been because she kept changing her mind about what to get her siblings while waiting in line for the cashier. And the second delay, which had been when she’d spotted a new PSP game that she’d heard Al grumbling about not having the spare cash to buy right now and she’d decided to buy it for her brother. And the third delay, when she’d spotted a new tea house and decided to stop by for a drink, and found her old friend Minoru had chanced upon the same idea and they’d gotten distracted talking about the new designs he’d been working on and her mother’s new line of clothes and other fashion stuff Ami only loosely cared about. And the fourth delay, which had happened when she ran into another old friend, Maria, and gotten into several consecutive arguments about things Ami didn’t even remember, which was just sort of what always happened on the occasion that she encountered the  _ painfully  _ straight-laced alchemist who she just  _ hated  _ and was also just about her best friend. And the sixth delay, when she’d spotted a super-cute parasol in a store window and decided she just had to have it, only to -

She stared down at the beaten-up mien of her newly-purchased parasol. It wasn’t  _ that  _ bad, really, except the handle was all bent now and a couple of the spokes had snapped.

“Awwww…”

“That’s what you get for using your umbrella like a sword!” Coughed Kuuga Fujimura, from her position on the brick of the fountain square, flat on her ass. Clearly the worse for wear, but grinning ear-to-ear.

… In case it wasn’t clear by now, this had been Ami’s seventh delay. She’d come across another old friend in the park, wielding a shinai and challenging passers-by to fights. And, well, Ami had  _ never  _ turned down a duel in her life. The thrill of the fight was one of life’s greatest joys!

“Hey, I beat your ass just now! Ain’t ya supposed to be the kendo ace here, lass?” Ami shot back, swinging her parasol to rest on her shoulder.

“Hey, if you didn’t use your freaky bullshit-!”

“I’m a witch! It’s what I do!” Ami started for a second, as if she’d just said something she shouldn’t have and caught herself only after the words left her mouth. But… she couldn’t figure out what. All she’d done was acknowledge one of her proudest traits, one that - same as anything - she’d made no secret of.

“Yeah, well, I’m not! C’mon, c’mon, one more match, huh? And this time, none of that bitchy -”

“I said ‘witch!’”

“- bullcrap! Just pure swordfighting! Got it?”

Ami twirled her parasol back into a ready stance, grin widening, “You know it!”

Both women bowed. Both women straightened their backs. And the match began.

Ami instantly lunged forwards and swung her weapon with wild abandon. The shinai and parasol clacked loudly as Kuuga blocked and deflected each blow.

“Men!” Kuuga, with a sudden surge of force, forced Ami’s hand far aside, leaving her wide open, and drew her shinai backwards to bring it down on Ami’s head, cockily calling her attack. Ami whipped her arm around, but the shinai still bonked her right in the noggin.

“Oww- Tsuki!” But, Ami hadn’t been trying to block the attack at all. Instead, while Kuuga had been busy with her own strike, Ami had poked her in the throat - also calling out her target.

Both women took a step back, and began cautiously circling each other. There was no way it would last long. Even the most casual observer could see that they were bursting with untamed energy. Neither of them was ready or willing to play defense. Sure enough, Kuuga stepped forward, sword held high. Ami responded in an instant, bringing her own in low from the side. Another breath of waiting and caution. Kuuga swung, a wide and heavy downward swing. A feint. She pulled back, and in less than an instant swung again, a tight arc from the side. Ami jumped backwards, onto the fountain ledge. Not proper kendo, but unlike Kuuga, she was no kendoka - and Kuuga had only said ‘swordfighting,’ not ‘kendo.’ Something she seemed to recognise, since she grinned and charged again. One swing. Another. Feint. Feint. Swing. Feint. Swing, swing, swing. Ami danced around each blow, itching for the chance to throw her own. And-

“Ya! Kote!” A huge and weighty overhead swing, right at Kuuga’s wrist. But - 

Kuuga deflected it with ten times more grace than she did anything other than swordfighting with. Undaunted, Ami swung again, and again, and again. Each time, Kuuga batted her wild blows aside with an uncharacteristic elegance.

Neither of them noticed the gathered crowd ‘ooh’ing and ‘ah’ing. Battle was everything. Battle was their world. Battle was the language they spoke, and each blow said more than any poem or prose ever could. It was art, self-expression, communication.

Ami grinned lopsidedly. Kuuga hadn’t changed at all. She was still the same old messy single-minded prodigy blademaster with an incurable lazy streak, just… moreso. Not like Ami had all that much room to talk, though.

“Men! Do! Kote! Men! Do! Kote!” Kuuga called six attacks ahead, and Ami found herself hard-pressed to avoid them all. Kuuga was a fierce fighter, and better with a blade than Ami. Each strike was beautiful and unerring.

Duck low. Twist backwards. Swing to the side. Duck again. Jump over. And-

Ami leapt off the fountain edge, did an acrobatic flip right over Kuuga’s head, and landed right behind her. She spun her sword like she’d seen in an old RPG her sister played, just for show, and drove it forwards.

“Tsuk-”

… and it was over. Kuuga had seen right through her flashy tricks, and perfectly landed the sixth blow, right on the wrist of her sword-hand. A second blow, a second point, a first victory - and now they were even.

“Son of a bitch,” said Ami.

Kuuga yawned, “Oi, you said it yourself.  _ I’m  _ the kendo ace here. Ain’t nobody I’ve ever met who can beat me in a straight-up swordfight.”

She tilted her head to the side lazily, “except my second cousin and that foreign lady she lives with. Ain’t nobody beatin’ those tigers,” she added, quietly enough that Ami assumed she hadn’t even been meant to hear it.

“Y’all don’t ever change! Don’t even need to talk to you to know that. You’ve got the same energy you did when we were in high school, and I’d bet a fifty million yen you’ll be the same when we’re old and grey.” Ami cackled.

Kuuga planted her shinai in the ground and leaned forwards until her chin was resting on it, and yawned again. “Well, grey-er in your case. Best of three?” She offered.

“Naaah.” Ami shook her head. “I gotta get going, y’know? If I don’t haul ass and punch the lights out of whoever took my stuff, I’m never gonna make it to the Arimas’ place in time.”

Kuuga blinked, confused, and her gaze followed as Ami jabbed her thumb over her shoulder at the park bench behind her. Some seven minutes ago, there had been shopping bags on it. Now it was empty.

“Aw shit. You want a hand with that?”

“Nah, I got it. I’m not an idiot-”

“You sure?”

“I’m not a  _ complete  _ idiot, so I got a tracking spell thingamajig on those. I’ll just follow that, kick some ass, and be done.” Ami snapped her fingers, conjuring a fireball in her hand, for effect, then dispelled it. “Simple as that.”

“Hah! A witchy weirdo like you sayin’ that, I guess I got no choice but to believe. Catch ya later, then!”

“Yeah, looks like the thieves are heading down an alley a couple blocks over. This won’t even take a second. Later!”

* * *

“Kohaku… What is that?” Hisui raised one eyebrow at the… colourful… vial her sister had just pulled out of her sleeve.

“Oh, this?” Kohaku laughed and waved her hand as her voice took on a sing-song lilt, “Just a little something I put together that I thought I’d have Shiki and Mistress Akiha test for me. Don’t worry~! It won’t hurt them or anything.”

“I see,” Hisui closed her eyes and nodded. She clasped her hands and straightened her posture. Breathed in deeply, then carefully evened out each breath afterwards. “And were you planning on informing them of this?”

“Nope! What they don’t know won’t hurt them, right?”

Hisui lowered her head, “... What Master Shiki and Mistress Akiha don’t know has  _ only ever  _ hurt them.”

“Well… yeah, but we’re past all that, aren’t we? It’s been twelve years. This is our happy ending! We don’t have to worry about all our old problems anymore!”

Hisui’s eyes remained shut. No, they wrenched even more tightly closed.

She’d probably known all along. It wasn’t hard to see through. But a person could believe anything, if it was close enough to the things they dreamed of on long dark nights.

“And that’s why I know. We’ll never have to stop worrying. They will always hurt. It will always be my duty to care for them. I will always hurt. It will never go away. And you… will never have this happiness even though you deserved it more than any of us, and I’m so, so, sorry.” Tears glistened as they pushed through her eyelids and ran rivers down her face. Her whole body shook, even as she tried bravely and in vain to keep herself still. She grabbed her wrist with a vice-like grip in a failed attempt to force her hand to still.

“None of this… is real.”

* * *

“What the hell?  _ What the hell _ ?” Ami grimaced widely, teeth glinting in the late light. She stepped backwards, assaulted by the stench of death. A mistake. Her foot bumped against a severed head, sending it flying behind her like a macabre soccerball.

She stared at the sight before her. The alleyway, the blood, the guts, the broken bodies. She couldn’t look away, even though everything in her wanted to turn and run.

“No, c’mon,” she whispered to herself, “you’re the big bad wicked witch. A couple ‘a corpses doesn’t mean  _ nothin’  _ to you. I’m the scariest thing in this whole piece of shit city-”

“You really could be, if you wanted to.”

“Gyaaaaaaaah!”

A mousy, brown-haired schoolgirl was kneeling in the alleyway right in front of her, right between the two corpses, licking blood off of her hands. Had she been there before? No, no way. Ami would never have missed seeing her so easily.

“But, you’re not scary… Not like me. Not like my love. Not like all of us with our dark sides,” the schoolgirl said, rising to her feet unsteadily, as if dizzy from hunger. She gave a terrible, fanged, smile. Blood drooled out of it, falling to the ground in droplets with a dissonantly chiming ‘plip!’ sound. Every sound seemed to be pounding in Ami’s ears; the dripping blood, the creaking old pipes, the crow cawing overhead, the schoolgirl vampire’s voice, her own heartbeat. The sun sinking into the horizon seemed cruel, as if it were turning its back on her.

“You don’t have a dark side. It’s just you, wearing the dark like a cloak. For fun. You have so much power, but it’s all too stupidly earnest to be scary. I wish I could’ve been more like you…” The vampire stumbled over to one of the corpses and kicked it aside with a sickening sound. She reached down, and lifted up Ami’s shopping bags. There were still entrails sticking to them, but the vampire just brushed them away as if they were dust motes.

“Ah. Don’t mind me, I’m rambling. This is what you’re here for, right? I’m giving it back to you. No strings attached! Don’t worry. There’s only one person I want to eat these days, and you’re not him.”

The vampire held out the bags.

“Ah!” She suddenly said, tapping her chin with her index finger, “Or… were you here for  _ her _ ?” She kicked the other corpse aside this time, with the same sickening sound. It made Ami feel like vomiting.

A feeling that disappeared when she saw what was leaning against the alley wall there.

“Miyako! What did you do to her, you-” The sight drove her mad. In an instant, she went from barely controlling her fear to beyond furious. Words failed her. Miyako, leaned against the wall, unmoving, like a broken doll, bleeding from the forehead. The only way to express her anger was -

Ami spat a vicious curse in Greek. Her voice rang with magic, and the air resonated. The wind whipped itself into a frenzy. The alleyway began to burn. The darkness crept out of the shadows with fangs and claws.

“Ahh! No, hold on, hold on! No fighting, no fighting! I need to talk to you!” The vampire’s eyes widened, and she flailed her arms around in a gesture too wild and frenzied to be as pacifying as it was meant.

There was a moment where the whole world seemed to grow fuzzy and blink out, like an old television.

And then it was back, changed. A barren brown wasteland dotted with the twisted corpses of cherry blossom trees. The air was stagnant and choking. The dirt beneath her feet felt awful to the touch, even through her shoes. Dead leaves littered the ground. And there was no magic. None, anywhere. Not in the air, not in the earth, not in Ami. It was like having her heart torn out. But the world seemed cleaner even despite the decay, as if it were the rot in the Argo, crushing to death delusion instead of a certain jackass whose name Ami refused to even think.

The vampire didn’t look like she’d been affected at all.

Miyako’s unconscious body slumped to the ground with no walls to support it.

“Sorry about that, but I really needed to keep you from frying me up, you know?” The vampire scratched the back of her head, “I was serious earlier, you know. Is that girl really so important to you? You seemed to be finding a lot of excuses not to go see her, you know.”

“Of course she is! None of that was my fault. I love her!”

“Do you? Or are you more like me? Is this just an obsession that’s gone on too long?”

“Hell are you-?”

“There was someone I loved once,” the vampire sighed. She closed her eyes. She looked tired, “and I still love him, but… it wasn’t what I thought it was. It was more like… I’d found someone who was fundamentally wrong. Like me! I wanted him because I’d never known anyone else with a dark side like that. I loved him, but… I should’ve been happy just to be his friend, instead of trying to force it. I was so desperate to not be alone that I couldn’t see that I already wasn’t. And now all I can do is sit around in the twilight and keep loving someone I can’t even talk to. What about you? Why do you love his little sister?”

“Whose wha-? Er, uh…” Ami crossed her arms. This wasn’t something she’d thought about in years. She loved Miyako. It had just been a rock-solid fact for nearly half her life. There was no ‘why.’ There didn’t need to be.

“She’s cute! And kind! And super, super strong! She can be so totally scary when she wants to be, but she’s so cool! What’s not to love?”

“But at the start, what was it that made her stand out? There’s lots of other people like that in Misaki, but only one Miyako.” The vampire shook her head.

“Well, I guess… She seemed sad. And she didn’t seem to like herself a whole lot. And she was always alone. Yeah… Yeah. That other stuff, that’s why she’s so hot, that’s what made me  _ see  _ her. But I started loving her because… The reason I wanted to love her, and for her to love me... She was alone and she shouldn’t’ve been, so I wanted to be… family! I wanted to be family for her. ‘Cause family  _ matters _ , right? If her family wasn’t enough, I wanted to invite her into mine. I’ve got a good family… nah, the best! Oh, but…”

Realization hit her like a blow from Miyako’s fist. At the same time, the vampire’s reality marble receded, returning them to the alleyway that they’d been in before. Except now it just seemed like so much cardboard. Like a bad stage dressing. Suddenly, Ami could see the seams and wires. If she reached out, she bet she could just tear them apart with her own two hands.

“... but not that much family, right? It’s just me, Mama, and Papa. Right. Mama’s other children all died long ago, and they won’t ever come back. And Miyako ain’t ever gonna love me the way I love her, ‘cause she’s already got a girl, and ‘cause… well, ‘cause she just doesn’t. I know that, I know it, I know it, but I didn’t want to think about it. So I let myself believe I was going to see her, but never really got any closer. Right? Shit.  _ Shit _ . How the hell did I not notice? Are you kidding me? It ain’t even a good spell! This whole thing’s made of shit and duct tape! We’re trapped in some stupid-ass dream world. Ain’t we?”

* * *

A flash of white outside the kitchenette window. Again, again, again. White hair, red eyes, a body like a corpse, and a ragged blue kimono. Haunting her all afternoon, always in the corner of her eye, closer each time, the devil take him-

“Oh, ow!” Miyako hissed.

“Are you okay?” Shiki worried.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be fine… Aw, some blood got on my paper tiger.”

She wasn’t normally this clumsy, she swore. Normally, accidentally nicking her finger while chopping up the chicken for dinner would have been unimaginable. But there it was, the little sliver of red and the dripping blood. She really must’ve been distracted - but by what, she couldn’t guess.

“Here, let me take a look at it…” Shiki muttered, grabbing bandages from the drawer under the kitchen sink.

“Nah, nah, it’s fine. Just a scratch, I can handle it myself. ‘Sides, I know you don’t handle blood too well. ‘Specially mine…” … Was there something wrong with her blood, specifically? Obviously, there was... Miyako’s head ached. The feeling had been getting worse all afternoon.

Shiki grabbed her hand.

“Hey, are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine.” Miyako clasped Shiki’s hand in turn. She’d meant it as just a reassuring gesture, but she must have put too much force into it, because Shiki squeaked out her own “Ow!”

“Oh, shit! Are you okay? Shit, shit, I didn’t mean-!”

“I’m fine… Ow, though, you don’t know your own strength sometimes, huh? Oooh… It can’t possibly be broken, right?”

“Oh, geez, Shiki. I didn’t mean to hurt you, I swear, I just-”

“I know! It’s fine, Miyako, really!”

Miyako’s brow knitted, her eyes welled with worry and tears, and the dull pounding at the back of her head got worse. She reached out gingerly, but jerked her hand back.

Nearby, an electronic bell-chime tolled.

…

…

“... was that…?”

“The door again.” Miyako’s eyes darkened with intent. “I’ll get it. Again.”

She strode over, and opened the door. Outside it was exactly the man she’d expected to see. 

The oni grinned, and held out his hand.

Miyako burst forwards, with weight and force more like a tiger pouncing than a human being. The impact of her fist struck the oni square in the chest, and sent him hurtling across the hall, and through the opposite door in a shower of splinters. She followed immediately, thudding across the distance in huge, leaping steps. He was pulling himself to his feet, but she didn’t give him the chance. Another blow, another, a deadly uppercut. The oni reeled back, glared, and pulled out a bloody blade. Miyako slammed forwards in one smooth motion, tackling him through another wall, and landed right on top of him. With an angry grunt, he threw her off, and waved his sword at her - she could see his mouth moving, but she didn’t care to listen to whatever venom was coming from the monster’s mouth. She swept out her leg, knocking him off his feet, and before he could touch the ground, struck him with her elbow, sending him sprawling. Once again, she thudded across the floor - paying no mind to the damage the fight was causing to the empty halls of grey plaster - and raised her foot above his prone form. She brought it down in a bone-crunching stomp, and the thudding of her blows and the splintering of bones echoed through the empty apartment. And again. And again.

The oni glared back up at her, shouting something again.

She pulled her hand back, stretched her wicked claws, preparing to strike. Red eyes blazing with ferocity and lethal intent. White hair flowing and shifting like a nest of snakes behind her head.

She thrust out her hand and -

Forced it to stop, snarling.

“You’re dead. I never even knew you. Why are you even here!?” She growled.

“Believe it or not, I’m here to help you, dumbass!”

“What, by harassing me and my wife!? Lurking in the corners, doing… fucking… I don’t even know. Bastard! Are you why? Is it your fault that this is…”

The oni shook her off him, and pulled himself up into a sitting position with his hands on his knees

“Hey, you’re my brother’s sister, so I know you’re smart enough to have pieced the clues together by now. Although if you’re anything like that bastard, you’re also dumb enough to have gotten the wrong picture. I mean, that idiot ran into me one night and decided it must’ve been a dream… so I hope you’re not dumb enough-”

“To do the reverse, see a dream and think it’s real, right?” Miyako sighed.

“Yeah.”

“Right. The headaches. The things I’ve been forgetting. My blood, my family. And Shiki is just Shiki… where are the other two? This is too simple, too clean, too nice, to be real. My life won’t ever look like this.”

The oni shook his head, “Hey, hey, hey, you got a long life ahead of you, kid-”

“Hey, I’m older now than  _ you  _ lived to be.”

“ _ Kid. _ Anyway, you’ll be happy one day. Maybe not quite this pretty little picture, but everything’ll come up aces for you, right?”

“Sure,” Miyakko scoffed, “... the point is, I’m dreaming right now, right? And I’m not supposed to be.”

* * *

“This is  _ stupid _ !” Shiki’s frustrated scream echoed through the warehouse. He immediately regretted it when a bloody blade embedded itself through the shipping container he’d been hiding behind, fractions of a centimetre from his head.

There was no way this should’ve happened. There was no way a bunch of loser cultists who discovered magecraft last Saturday should’ve been able to summon an inchworm, much less whatever ridiculous scantily-clad deity or demon or whatever it was that was currently aping his brother and hurling very solid and very pointy blobs of blood at him.

“Seriously, what is this!?” Another spray of flechettes, and - a puddle of blood burst into spikes underneath his feet, just in time to skewer the air where he’d been a moment before.

Here he was, jumping from shadow to shadow in this decrepit abandoned warehouse surrounded by the corpses of a bunch of idiots who summoned a demon-god because they were too blisteringly stupid to know that they couldn’t. That was stupid. And then there was the thing they summoned, too -  _ she  _ was stupider than anything. All that nonsense prattle about tiger kings and blood, and now there was some woman wearing way too much absurd, flashy clothing that didn’t actually cover anything and saying stuff about ‘worlds beyond’ and her ‘bestrewn blood’ while she kept trying to kill him.

“And keeps failing pretty badly at it,” he muttered to himself.

He leapt out of the shadows, into plain sight, and was greeted in an instant by a massive spike driving straight towards his head. And another, and another, and - he was past all of them sooner than he could blink. Closing the distance. Another burst of tiny daggers like a flock of passenger pigeons charging him, and he did not slow down. Well, that was easy to deal with, all he needed was his knife and his - 

He dropped to the ground, bent backwards, head as low as he could get it, slid, ignored the few stray darts that pierced his chest as best he could, and launched himself to his feet as he tore them out and threw them away. The Tiger Queen - or whatever she was called - waved her hand, and more blood spilled from her mouth, quickly forming into blades and needles, all aimed at Shiki. The nearest one to him nearly formed directly in his throat. He jumped on top of it, drew his knife, and leapt towards the Tiger Queen, and - 

“So what are you supposed to be, anyway?” And kicked off another shipping container, abruptly changing course to the so-called Queen’s left, just barely dodging a gigantic spike as it erupted from the ground beneath him.

She eyed him balefully, “I come from a planet more distant than you can imagine. I am a predator, as my kind is born to be. These fools who called me the Tiger Queen understood not even half of what I am. When I arrived in this backwater -”

“What, Japan? Oi, we get enough of that from two-bit magi, we don’t need it from alien jackasses too.”

“... Earth. When I arrived here, I was shattered into a thousand pieces and I, who came here to consume this world, was consumed by its inhabitants. But, my blood has survived in a few lineages - enough that I can consume them until I am strong enough, whole enough, to finally abandon your second-rate civilization.”

“Huh,” grunted Shiki, dodging more blood-spikes, “so what you’re saying is…”

“That I will reclaim what the creatures men call ‘oni’ have stolen from me, and devour this rotten half-world.”

“Awfully chatty, aren’t you… Hey, but on the flipside, if all oni blood is part of you, and I kill you, doesn’t that mean…” No, that was too convenient. There was no way something like that could save Akiha from her own body’s nature. Right? That was…

**Absolutely ridiculous.**

“... Yeah, completely ridiculous. That’s too convenient. You’re too convenient - I mean, why do you even look so human? Why can I even talk to you? Why do you even think in ways I can  _ almost  _ understand? I get it now. You’re way out of scale, you’re way out of place, and you’re too easy a solution. You’re not,” he said, flicking off his glasses, “A real thing, right?” And he saw only the yawning pitch-black void of Death made manifest.

A blade lodged itself in his leg.

“Yyyyy-agh!”

**Idiot! Just because she’s fake doesn’t mean she can’t hurt you! Kill you!**

_ No, that is what it means. This is all just a story someone’s trying to tell me, and it’s not even a good one. The hero can get beaten up as much as he wants, if it’s to show how scary the villain is, and it won’t affect him when he gets his second wind. It’s lots of scary-looking injuries that mean nothing at all. _

“No, this time I get it, definitely. I was wrong before. You’re as real as anything I see. But I’ve believed a lot of silly lies in my time, and I’d like to think that I’ve gotten pretty good at spotting them. The thing is…  _ none  _ of this is real, right?”

Suddenly there were shining ribbons of red in the blackness. No, not red. A brilliant, vibrant, devilish colour with a magnificent shine that nobody but him had ever had the privilege of seeing. Ugly, bloody, hated by the both of them. But wonderful. Especially the woman it was attached to.

**About time that you** “Figured it out. Honestly, I love you, but you’re such an idiot sometimes.” Akiha grumbled, arms crossed, back high, standing stiffly in front of Shiki.

* * *

“Yes, that’s exactly right. … I’m sorry, too.” Kohaku’s voice carried an edge of bitterness Hisui had never heard her express aloud. Her amber eyes sparkled with pale light, and her image wavered like fog.

* * *

“Yup, you got it! Actually, it sounds like you understand it better than I do,” the ghost of Satsuki Yumizuka laughed. Her eyes faded to brown, and her fangs vanished.

* * *

“No shit, Sherlock. Wakey-wakey, little miss,” Grinned the lingering will of SHIKI Tohno. Suddenly there was no white hair, no red eyes; instead his hair was long and black, and his eyes were a brilliant greenish-blue.

* * *

“... Now then.” Akiha’s voice sounded detached, but Shiki had known her long enough to hear the undercurrent of possessive anger, “Time this ridiculous cage was torn to shreds. I’ll show that piece of filth what happens when he fools around with what’s mine.”

And the whole world exploded with red.


	2. Jo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Me, more than two months ago, with unfounded confidence:** I swear to god I won't do the thing where I abandon writing for months that I've done with... uh, every other multi-chapter fic I've tried to write.  
>  **Me, now, very sheepishly:** Technically that wasn't a lie! I did a little bit of work every day. It's just, most days, that was barely any work at all.
> 
> And it's hard to feel as passionate about this as I was at first. The more I write, the further I fall short of the ideal in my hand, and I can't help but feel dissatisfied. Even when I do my best to disconnect what I've created and what I wanted to create - which isn't fully possible, but I can at least try - I still feel like it's just not much good. I know it's really, really bad for a creator to deprecate their creations like that, but bear with me while I'm still a novice finding his feet, please.
> 
> I'll keep trying to finish it, of course. Even if it really is bad, that's a lesson learned. Many lessons learned, even! I won't improve by giving up whenever the going gets a little tough and abandoning anything that I can't do effortlessly.  
> ... But if I can't get the third and final chapter at least mostly done for September or so, I think I'll just call it a lesson learned and cancel this fic. Knowing when something just isn't going to work out and you should just get off the sinking ship, that's also a valuable skill to learn.

\----- Traditionally, stories are told in three acts. There are other theories, and the structure of something so peculiar as a story may suffer from being too rigidly defined, but at the base of it all, there it is - three acts. The story told until now was the second act in disguise, but now the false cover has been torn away, and the first act of our story can be seen for what it is.

Here in the second chapter begins our story.

Beneath the dawning light, the streets were empty. The last few days, the people of Misaki City had displayed uncommon caution, and had avoided being outside in the night and the small hours as much as possible. There was danger in the dark, or so the rumours went. People had been disappearing in the night again, but unlike the serial killer of twelve years past, some had turned up again, comatose or in the grip of incomprehensible hallucinations. And there was a rumour going around, of a demon in the haunted house on the hill. It wasn’t a new rumour, per se - the mansion atop Shiroinuzuka had been the subject of many such urban legends for decades now - but there was a new wrinkle these days; the demon, they said, was stalking the streets at night and whisking away unwise night-owls. The demon who lived on the hill, it was said, trapped people in their worst nightmares.

… Of course, people are foolhardy creatures - even when most are wary, some will be pointlessly, dangerously brave. There was one young woman ambling down the sidewalk. Each step she took was heavy and purposeful, but each footfall was quiet and feline. Her long and wavy tawny hair swayed in the breeze. Her eyes, despite their shining emerald colour, had a settled-in dullness to them. She wore short and loose clothing that proudly showed off her athletic body and maybe clashed just a little with the large and squarish fake spectacles she wore. 

This was Miyako Arima in the waking world.

Rumours of a demon on the hill did not much bother her. For one thing, she knew them to be true. Or at least to have  _ been  _ true, up until her cousin had moved out. For a second thing, she was herself quite a scary creature; she wasn’t nearly as scary as the demon of Shiroinuzuka, but the same blood - if only a little of it - ran in her veins, and she was quite confident in the martially-tamed savagery of her body. For a third, if her cousin  _ was  _ kidnapping people in the dead of night, she trusted that it was for a good and sensible reason, because she trusted her cousin to be a good and sensible person. Well, mostly. And if the demon on the hill kidnapping people in the dead of night was  _ not  _ her cousin - and she was pretty sure it wasn’t - she trusted that they would  _ not  _ survive long.

So with that confidence, she turned left into a mildly dingy sidestreet. The morning sun did not shine so clearly in this corner of the city, and here, barely out of sight of the main roads, the shiny steel and glass gave way to mottled, flaking paint and reddening iron., and weeds sprouted from the edges and cracks of the pavement Mostly, all there was back here was the loading bays and other backstage mechanisms of the bright and fashionable street-facing stores, but there were a couple of smaller shops tucked away back here, too - including a cozy little flower shop sitting comfortably in the sunniest lot.

Miyako pushed open the door and walked in. Bells jingled, happily announcing a new customer. The ‘Closed’ sign on the door swayed uselessly in the breeze, sadly ignored.

The soft mélange scent of some hundred different kinds of flowers tickled her nostrils, and brought with it the soothing feeling of a nostalgic arcadia; the paradise of plant-life where she had, as a depressive teenager, escaped her anxieties. Across the front desk and in the numerous displays across the walls were a dozen or so dazzling flower arrangements, blooming in deep reds and shining blues and peaceful greens and midnight blacks and snowy whites. Sunlight filtered in through the glass storefront, bathing the whole tiny shop in luminous warmth.

In the back of the room, behind the counter, a man was putting the finishing touches on a trio of bouquets. He was tall and so thin as to be almost skeletal, or maybe spider-like; he had short, messy dark hair, and silvery grey eyes that seemed to have an almost imperceptible dull glow beneath his thick, round glasses. He moved smoothly, quickly, flexibly. He was adept with his hands and singularly focused as he trimmed the stems of his flowers. This was the Shiki Tohno of the waking world. Or the one who still lived, anyway -

He paused for a second, blinking dumbly. His grip slackened, and both bouquet and knife almost fell from his hands; he caught them at the last second, but made little other motion.

\- for as long as that might last.

The moment passed. He slipped the folding knife in his hand into his pocket with slumsy surreptitiousness, and waved a cheery hello to Miyako as she entered his flower shop.

“Miyako!” He smiled, “What are you doing here?”

Miyako crossed her arms behind her head and grinned back, “Eh, you know. Was goin’ to visit Shiki, and I thought, hey, might as well drop by and see Shiki while I was in the neighbourhood, right?”

Shiki exhaled exasperatedly while Miyako made an amused little ‘hn!’ sound at her own barely-a-joke. He really could not even begin to understand why Miyako found it so amusing that her girlfriend and her foster brother had the same given name, and found it a little concerning, despite the figurative glass house he stood in.

“If you’ve got a date, don’t let me keep you.”

Miyako shrugged, “You couldn’t if you tried! I got time. Not like I’m on a schedule or anything. I’m way early, anyway, so I can stay and chat a while.”

“I have some things to do today, but… yeah, I’m not exactly on a schedule either,” Shiki nodded, “I’d be happy to hang out a while! Want to grab breakfast? There’s a cafe down around the corner…”

“Oh, Ahnenerbe, right? I’ve been there before, they make good food. Especially that ginger part-timer, Hibi-something. I already ate, but I wouldn’t say ‘no’ to a second breakfast!”

“Haha, sounds good to me, then. As for me, I’m famished. I was just gonna eat a couple energy bars or something, so thanks for giving me an excuse to stop and grab a proper meal.”

“Geez, bro. You’re the one who always tells me to take better care of myself, but then you’re gonna try and take on… the day with no breakfast? That’d be pretty dumb even if you didn’t have anemia.”

“Aheh…”

* * *

And then there they were. Sitting in a sun-drenched booth in the corner of Ahnenerbe cafe, quiet and empty and smelling of fresh-ground coffee and sugary pastries.

Shiki pecked at his breakfast scramble - Hisui had recommended it to him, but honestly, he wasn’t sure he saw the appeal; it was good, but he found it a bit heavy on the spinach and chickpeas - with a sort of distracted delicacy, and drank deeply from his mug of coffee.

Miyako tore apart her towering stack of pancakes and bacon with enthusiasm and all haste, stopping only occasionally to take incongruously slow and delicate sips of her tea, savouring it like liquid gold even though it was, at best, somewhat above-average Scottish breakfast tea.

“So” - “how’ve you” - “been” - “lately?” Two voices said in exact chorus.

Shiki blinked. Miyako blinked.  _ What perfect harmony, _ Shiki drily thought,  _ I guess it proves what good siblings we are. _

“Aight, sorry, sorry,” Miyako held up her hands, “you were saying?”

“Eh… I was asking how your life’s been going lately. Good, right? You look pretty happy today.”

“Hmm,” Miyako tilted her head down thoughtfully. The motion caused the light reflecting off her glasses to become a bright sheen across the lens that hid her expression, “Well, today’s good, you’re right. It’s tomorrow I’m worried about.”

“Is something special happening tomorrow?”

“Not  _ literally  _ tomorrow, dummy. The future. Been thinking about that a lot lately. I’m not really doing anything these days, but there’s no way I can keep that up. I have to decide what I’m doing for good, but really, I can’t decide.”

Shiki nodded, and watched Miyako’s face carefully. Her eyes were hidden, and the rest betrayed little.

“If today’s good, and the future isn’t, why worry about the future at all?” He said, “The future isn’t real, not yet. All we’ve got is now, so you better appreciate it, right? That’s all I’ve ever needed.”

Miyako leaned back in her seat and popped a piece of bacon into her mouth, chewing it as she thought.

“... That’s right. Tomorrow’s troubles belong to tomorrow’s me, right? And speaking of troubles, what about you?” She asked, pointing her fork at Shiki.

“Same old. I’m just drifting through the days-“

“And that’s why you have that switchblade in your pocket, right?” Miyako was sharp, if nothing else. The glasses she wore gave her an air of learning that was completely undeserved, but she was clever when she wanted to be, and little escaped her eyes.

“Okay, you got me,” Shiki threw his hands up in mock surrender, “so it’s not all situation normal. I mean, there’s the thing with the knife, but also, Akiha’s got deadlines coming up on that book deal of hers, so on top of all the usual stuff she works herself to the bone handling, now she’s scrambling g to get the final draft written down, finished up and mailed off, I can’t even convince her to take any breaks, and she won’t sleep unless she passes out from exhaustion. So, you know, I’m pretty worried about her. And Hisui’s started taking on more work, too, and I mean, she’s handling that  _ way _ better than Akiha, so I’m not worried about her, but it does make me feel a bit bad that they’re working so hard while I’m just sitting around arranging flowers all day, and-“

“Yeah, that doesn’t explain the knife. Especially  _ that _ knife.”

… and she knew just what Nanatsu-Yoru was, too. Not that she wouldn’t have been able to see through his flimsy misdirection even without that knowledge, but…

Shiki sighed, and set the knife on the table. Folded up, it looked like nothing more than a metal rod. Even the part that the blade came out of was barely visible. It really seemed like a harmless piece of scrap, but it had soaked in the blood of an unknowable legion of oni and vampires and other monsters.

“... Right. You’ve heard the new rumours going around about the demon on the hill, right? Turns out, some old jackass from the Touzaki family ran off into the night and started causing problems in their territory. They don’t know if he actually inverted or he’s just regular crazy, by the way. And apparently, they didn’t bother to tell anyone that they hadn’t been able to track down and kill him until he wandered into Misaki. Akiha managed to confirm he’s holed up in the old estate somewhere, and she’s going to go deal with him tonight. But like I said, she’s handling way too much at once lately, so I thought I’d handle it myself before she even has time to worry.”

Shiki was firmly opposed to bloodshed, and despised death with all his heart. He didn’t even like swatting flies very much.

But pacifism would only get you killed, and non-violence only worked if upheld with violence. In the darkest corners of the Earth and the brightest monuments of humanity, there were always, always, always evil creatures. Creatures that would not listen to reason, could not be bargained with, lived for nothing except their own vicious self-satisfaction, that  _ must _ be fought and  _ killed _ .

… that was the view that Akiha held. Shiki could feel her pride and resolution resonating in his head.

Shiki would fight, if he needed to. But there was only one life he’d ever ended, and he had no intention of letting there be a second. Even his worst enemy…

He remembered letting SHIKI, mad monster that he was, go free. And he could never forget when SHIKI had been torn apart by another mad monster of his own making. Yeah, he remembered  _ that _ all too well.

He wouldn’t kill the rogue Touzaki. He’d stop him, whatever that meant in the end. And then, probably, Akiha would kill him, or she’d hand him over to the Touzaki family head, who would kill him. So it wasn’t really all that different in the end, but Shiki wanted to give the man some kind of chance, if he could.

**Isn’t that a rather weak conviction, then? You won’t kill, but you’ll allow him to be killed? That’s just a prettier way of doing exactly the same thing in the end.**

_ Life is a valuable thing, you know. Every second is precious. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t at least try to grant someone a little more time. I know it’s hypocrisy, but I really can’t just kill like that. _

**Hmph. Well, I suppose that’s one of the things I love about you. Your ridiculous stubbornness and insistence on taking everything into your own hands, too.**

_ Haha… _

“Sorry, gotta go! Akiha’s onto me!” Shiki stood up, ramrod straight, grabbed Nanatsu-Yoru, slammed money onto the table, and sprinted out the door.

Miyako sighed, rolled her eyes, and slouched further down in her seat.

* * *

… She caught up with him about ten minutes later, in an alleyway hidden from the rising sun. He knelt in the shadows cast by the skyscrapers all around, and left a bouquet of camellias in the tiny rays that peeked through.

Miyako waited on the street, leaning against the corner, just out of sight.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Shiki came walking out of the alley with his hands in his pockets and an unreadable expression on his face.

Miyako crossed her arms and opened one eye.

“Don’t you? Isn’t a certain burning cold empress hot on your tail?”

“Ahaha… I panicked a little there, but I forgot, she’s out of town meeting with one of the branch families today, so no matter what she does, I have a couple hours before she throws me in a cage.”

Miyako laughed too. Compared to Shiki’s awkward, nervous ‘ahaha,’ this was the sound of a sister genuinely entertained by her brother’s foolishness. 

Seconds stretched into minutes into something like an hour. Shiki continued up the road to the mansion on the hill, and Miyako followed him into the figurative fire.

_ Hey, hey, isn’t there supposed to be a frying pan first? _ She thought.

Although, come to think of it, she’d chosen against the frying pan herself - a literal one, as it happened. The chances of her making it to Nanaya’s house in time to make lunch for her girlfriend, like she’d been planning to, were just about nil now. And likewise, the chances of her being able to ask certain questions and make certain decisions had also become nothing.

… Well, the fact of the matter was that they’d probably already been nothing to begin with. Ever the ogre, she was more afraid of words than monsters.

_ I didn’t go with Big Bro because I was afraid, though! If there’s a monster in town, there’s no way I’m gonna sit back and leave it be. Some bastard wants to threaten my town? I’ll smash him to fucking bits with my bare fucking hands! _ She grinned, veins burning in anticipation. And then, after the passing of a single second...

“Yeah, that’s really not how the only daughter of a tea ceremony family should be talking…” She muttered, sighing.

She stopped walking for a moment, and leaned bent-over on the guardrail. Sometimes, she forgot just how tall this hill was, but from here, staring out over the tops of even Misaki’s tallest buildings, she really felt like she had her head in the clouds. She swiped her false glasses off her face, and hooked them to her tank top.

The hands of the clock crept closer to noon, but the morning sun was still casting long shadows over Misaki.

“Oh, hey, that’s…” From here, she could see her girlfriend’s house, nestled into one such shadow. Indistinct, but recognisable, at least to someone who visited so often. Almost on the other side of the town, she could see her cousin’s penthouse, rising above the surrounding peasantry - although much more modestly than she thought suited Akiha’s indomitable and queenly presence (her cousin wasn’t the only person who lived there, of course. But she couldn’t help but think of the place as Akiha’s, even so). The Arima household was somewhere in there, too, but she couldn’t quite get a good look at it.

She sat there a moment, staring at the skyline with thoughts even she found undefinable running through her head; then she hurried after her brother.

* * *

Shiki solemnly lay a second bouquet, a beautiful collection of sunflowers, in the shadow of an elderly tree not that far from the entrance to the manor.

Miyako, again, lingered some distance away. This time, at the mansion doorstep. The great iron doors, the boarded-up windows, and the titanic walls cast an oppressive aura that Shiki thought made her look smaller.

_ You’re already pretty short, are you sure you can afford to just lose height like that? _

Judging by the discontented expression on her face and the irritated side-eye she was giving the doors, Miyako’s train of thought was wrecking itself in a similar manner.

“So what, you want me to bash these down?” Miyako tilted her head as Shiki approached, knocking her fists together.

“I have a key, Miyako.”

She visibly deflated at that. It was like her enthusiasm had taken some of her stature and presence with it when it left.

“Hey, were you seriously looking forward to testing your strength against Akiha’s security measures that much?” He said. And did not say,  _ you’ve really gotta stop losing height so easily _ .

Miyako shrugged noncommittally.

Shiki laughed as he fumbled in his pockets for the door key.

… and a minute later, the old iron doors groaned open, slowly, slowly, dragging sluggishly with a ghoulish creaking noise. The foyer of the fabled mansion on Shiroinuzuka lay open. It was empty. Sunlight, streaming in through the open doors and the gaps in the boarded-up windows, did nothing to make it seem any less dull and lifeless. What little furniture there was, lay hidden under dust covers, which in turn lay hidden under some eleven years worth of dust.

Shiki turned and walked away.

“I’m gonna check the forest and the detached building first. You handle the first and second floors here, and then we’ll meet up and have a look at the basement together. Got it? Scream if you find our guy, I’ll come running.”

“If you hear any screaming, it ain’t gonna be me.”

“That’s the spirit!” Shiki waved as he walked away, “stay safe, okay?”

“No promises. Don’t get yourself killed, okay?”

“I’ll do my best.”

Miyako vanished into the abandoned manor as if swallowed whole, while Shiki rounded the corner and, a few minutes later, was lost to the sea of trees.

The forest was large. In times past, it had been greater than any eye could see, a green veil shrouding the whole land of Misaki in night and humming with transcendent power running in veins beneath the black dirt. Not so long ago, Shiroinuzuka had been entirely forested, a crown of natural fortitude amid the rapidly-urbanising Misaki City. As long as Shiki had known it, it had merely been a shadow atop the hill, but it was still large enough to wander lost for hours in.

Even with the sun overhead, it was dark as night in the forest that covered the estate. Here, and only here, it was like walking into the Misaki City of some hundred years past, when the land had been nothing but tall hills and tall trees. Small creatures rustled the underbrush, leaves crunched underfoot, and birds twittered overhead. Gnarled trees stood in endless ranks in every direction, like barred wall after barred wall. The black earth squelched as Shiki set foot on it, and dew sparkled on the leaves, reflecting the meagre light into a speckled sidereal glow. Scents like pinewood and sap and wildflowers and animal shit and fertile decay hung so heavy in the air that Shiki almost felt it weighing down his shoulders.

The trails he and his siblings had beaten into the dirt as children in times past were long gone, long overgrown, and long forgotten in any case, but some deep instinct drove his feet in hauntingly familiar patterns. In the most distant shadows, shades of black hair and red bows and timid laughter seemed to flit. Ghosts of muddied white shirts and teal eyes and friendly taunting climbed the branches and jumped from tree to tree in the corner of his eye. The reflection of red hair and jade-but-not-yet-jaded eyes and energetic shouting chased him from the rain puddles and dewdrops. A revenant in a red kimono tied with blue walked by his side in silent understanding. He knew that if he turned around he’d see, far, far behind him, a glass window and a forlorn amber-eyed phantom far out of reach.

This was a place of memories, and altogether too many of them lingered in the liminal low-light.

“... Yeah. Too many memories.” He shook his head and continued on, refusing the imperishable summer.

Ahead, two mirage of crimson-red hellfire and a cold fatherly face wavered and disappeared, swept away by the wind into a night from time out of mind and reduced to nothing by its passing from living memory.

All awareness of time vanished as he trudged through the mud and leaf mould, and when he finally arrived at the detached building by his meandering route across the length and breadth of the sea of trees, he felt as if he’d been wandering for only one interminable moment, or perhaps an imperceptibly brief eternity.

The old building wavered in front of his eyes, and the austere Japanese house in the heart of the wood where the long-dead son of Kiri Nanaya had lived two all-too-short years imposed itself on top of the decrepit, crumbling wood and rot.

The ghosts and reflections crowded closer, too, and Shiki could not face them.

The tree branches rustled, and there was another flash of white and black up above. Shiki’s skin prickled, and his eyes sparked beneath his glasses.

He whirled around. This time, he did not find a memory intruding into the real world there.

It was a very real - and very tiresome - wicked witch, grinning stupidly down at him and looking right at home in the haunted forest. A stick-like figure with a high back. Pale skin, pale eyes, pale hair. A sharp face with a crooked mouth and bagged eyes. Midnight leggings and a tenebrous gold-lined hoodie. Long boots and dark gloves and a parasol.

“What are you up to, Kuzuki?” Shiki asked mildly.

* * *

This house held hardly any memories for Miyako. Neither the boarded-up windows and dust-covered furniture nor the faded wallpaper and derelict lights held any particular meaning or melancholy for her.

It didn’t seem like it could possibly be haunted, once you saw it from the inside. It was too much of a void, there was too much nothing. Miyako’s feet tapped the marble as she walked, and the whisper-quiet ‘thmp!’ sounds echoed down the empty halls.

Places like the Jinan Clinic or Shiki’s flower shop were alive; they were places that were seared to the core by the coming and going and the hopes and dreams and the sorrows and joys of people. Places like cemeteries and scrapyards were dead; they were places that people avoided, where the worn-out debris of lives well-lived accumulated and were strung up in memories like inmates in straitjackets, all but a dwindling few too old to trouble the living. This place was only empty; even the memories in this creaking building had been scattered like cobwebs, and there was no meaning in the base corporeal things anymore - the person who raised these walls, what was it that they hoped to make? The people who lived within these walls, what memories must they have made? Visitors and guests, what must they have thought? Pets and pests, what lives had they lived? It was all gone. Every hope, every hatred, every heartful feeling or human soul that could possibly tie a spectre to these old walls had long since fled this place.

… That was the feeling she got, in any case.

She padded up the stairs. It felt like walking on the moon. Like it was its own tiny world, and that world was completely devoid of life, or death, or anything more than the physical matter that made up its boundaries. 

She lay her hand on the doorknob of one of the rooms upstairs. The metal was cool to the touch, and the dust had already been shaken off. Her grip tightened. This room was her only real memory of the Tohno mansion, and if some bastard had intruded on it, she’d rip them apart piece by piece.

… the doorknob felt warm. She didn’t know if that was because of the mysterious other hand, or the precious and powerful history that welled in this one room, unlike any other in the manor.

She threw the door open with a mighty slam. The figure on the other side nearly jumped out of their skin, and whirled around with knife in hand. The blow came faster than Miyako had expected, and despite its clumsiness, she barely managed to redirect the blade away from her heart, and it stuck into the doorframe. Jade eyes blazed with intent and a possessive, protective instinct that Miyako could never have hoped to understand, despite the mirror image of it burning in her own gaze.

“Eh…? Stop, stop! Hold on!”

Miyako’s stance collapsed backwards into a sheepish slouch while she scratched at the back of her head, and Hisui stepped backwards and raised a hand to her mouth, eyes widening, in a similar expression of abashment.

“Miyako…! Don’t surprise me like that!” Hisui breathlessly admonished. The tension in her body just collapsed, with her head tilted one way and her shoulders tilted another. She dropped backwards, and a great cloud of dust shook from the bed as she sat on it.

Miyako sighed, and leaned against the doorframe.

“A’ight, a’ight, sorry about that,” Miyako responded promptly, but her attention was wandering around the room. She’d only been here once, but her brother's room seemed unchanged. The oversized bed, the fireplace that had probably never been used. The bare dresser, the bedside table on which lay only a clock that had long ago stopped ticking. The window that she’d broken in through when she was eleven, caught up in a childish flight of fancy about Shiki being kidnapped by witches. It was pretty much a fancier version of another, equally barren room left untouched for years in her own home.

Her attention fixed itself back on Hisui.

“Hell’re you doing here? Don’t tell me you’re here to fight, too…” Hisui was in the first place nowhere near tough enough to go looking for fights, but right now she didn’t even look dressed for it. Simple, casual clothes - a white t-shirt and a black skirt, kneesocks and surprisingly tough but not particularly heavy-duty boots similar to the ones Akiha wore.

“No, that’s not it!” Hisui shook her head vigorously, “You came here with Shiki, right? Then, can you tell me where he went? I’m going to convince him to turn back.”

Miyako scratched her head. It wasn’t like Hisui’s worry-worn nature was unfamiliar to her, and it came as no surprise that she would want to keep Shiki out of danger. Hisui was a caretaker and a nurturer at heart, and Miyako knew that Hisui found no greater fulfilment than keeping her people happy and healthy, but…

“Hopeless? Yeah, sure is. Besides, what’s the big problem? As far as creeps in this town go, what I heard about this guy doesn’t even crack top-twenty. This ain’t even dangerous for my big bro.”

“I can’t deny that,” Hisui’s eyes didn’t quite meet hers as she spoke, “but isn’t that terribly cavalier? ‘Because Shiki has come out unscathed from worse before, there’s nothing to worry about’ isn’t… I  _ can’t _ think like that. It’s like saying that you shouldn’t look both ways before crossing the street, because you never got hit by a car before. Something could happen under some unlucky star, by some whim of chance, that you never imagine, and suddenly you’re dead. And if you just stop taking your safety seriously, it’ll be sooner rather than later. Or maybe it’ll be something you saw coming, and you let it kill you because you’re so determined to keep living carelessly like nothing’s wrong you convinced yourself that...”

As Hisui spoke, her stance gradually straightened and stiffened. Her fists clenched. Her brow, knitted with worry, became knitted with determination and quiet anger instead.

Her voice, quavering at first, gained force and momentum until it became folded steel.

“I won’t ever stop worrying about him. Or Akiha. Or  _ you _ , Miyako. Please, let’s just leave.”

“Uh…” Miyako stuffed her hands in her pockets and turned her face away. Her jaw moved dubiously without her mouth ever opening, searching for the words she needed to deny Hisui’s and finding none. She wasn’t really the kind of person who hesitated to reject an idea despite not being able to refute it, but she felt absolutely miserable about the idea of upsetting Hisui.

The only response she could pull together was -

“Hey, how’d you even know Shiki was gonna be here, anyway?” - to artfully dodge the question.

“Shiki isn’t as good at keeping secrets as he thinks he is. And anyway, Akiha texted me about it.” Judging by Hisui’s simultaneously disappointed, pained, and judgemental expression, Miyako’s dodging had not been half as artful as she’d hoped.

“Ah… right… Yeah, that makes sense. Texting. Hah,” That was a solution that simply wouldn’t have occurred to Miyako. A small part of her felt embarrassed that she was worse with technology than someone as disconnected (and nearly a decade older than her, at that) as Hisui, but Miyako was an old-fashioned soul at heart, and mostly quite comfortable with it.

… even her girlfriend, a cellphone enthusiast who presently owned the latest smartphone, had given up on texting as a reliable method of contacting her.

Miyako pulled her beaten-up flip-phone out of her pocket, and opened it with a flick of her wrist. The first time she’d done so in a couple weeks or so, as far as she remembered.

“Wait,  _ how _ many missed texts?” A quick glance showed nothing urgent, though; mostly, they were incidents that had been resolved in person in the end. Only a towering pile of problems that had already been solved or forgotten, arguments that had already been fought (and often lost), dates that had already been taken (and one that had been missed), and a couple of reminders from Nanaya to be careful and stay safe.

Miyako sighed.  _ Hey, if it’s a fight I know won’t be a problem, then I’m still being careful and staying safe, yeah? _ Then, she plucked Hisui’s knife from the wall and handed it back to her.

“So what me and Shiki decided is, I’m gonna check the above-ground bits, while he looks around the forest, and then we meet up at the entrance and check out the basement together. How ‘bout you hang out there, and you can try ‘n’ convince him to play it safe then. A’ight?” As she spoke, she was already stepping back out into the hall.

“... I’ll go with you., Hisui’s unsure but inarguable voice eventually drifted from behind her, “Actually, there’s someone else here I need to find, too. I ran into her on the way up, and accidentally let slip about the intruder, and she just took off…”

Miyako’s shoulders slumped massively. She looked like all her Christmases had come at once, and every single one had been a bitter disappointment. Because a description as vague as that could be just about anybody, but it always ended up being...

“Aw, please don’t fuckin’ tell me you’re talking ‘bout...” but before she voicing her dread, she shook it off, and nodded without turning around, “a’ight. Let’s get going, then!”

* * *

Ami Kuzuki swung herself around the branch by her legs, and was then hanging upside-down by the crooks of her legs, putting herself on eye-level with Shiki. Her impish grin seemed even more energetic and full of diablerie when it was inverted like that.

“Why d’ ya think? I’m not a complicated lass. I hear about,” she giggled, cupping a hand to her ear in mime, “some scary jackass holed up up here, I just gotta come check it out!”

Shiki wondered if the girl had actually grown at all since he’d first met her. She’d been a reckless, thoughtless, mischievous first-year high school student ridden with bad habits and little concept of personal boundaries then, and in the seven-odd years since then, the only part of that she seemed to have lost was ‘first-year high school student.’ She hadn’t even decided on what to replace it with, either; last Shiki had heard, she’d been trying to make it as an actress, start a punk rock band, and design stuffed animals all at once. Before that, she’d been torn between fashion design and animation. And he suspected if he asked now, the answers would have changed. For about the fourth time.

Her one consistent goal was, unfortunately, also the most bothersome. Her long-standing infatuation with Miyako was an endless source of annoyance to his sister, and one that had bled over to him as well.

“I’m glad to hear you’re enjoying yourself. Maybe find a less dangerous game to play, though?”

Ami snapped her fingers and muttered something in Greek that sounded suspiciously like a swear word, and the branch she was hanging from suddenly began to grow rapidly, stretching and spinning and bending and carrying Ami along with it until she had both her feet on the ground.

“Come ooonnn, you oughta know me better than that!” She spread her arms and arched her back, “I’m the scariest thing-that-goes-bump-in-the-night this forest has ever seen! Nothin’ dangerous here for me!” And she emphasised the point by twirling around and striking a pose, leaning forward nearly ninety degrees, placing one hand on her hip, and tapping her chin with her index finger.

And then she straightened up, tapped her cheek and stared upwards as if lost in thought, and added as an afterthought, “ _ Sick _ forest, though, don’t get me wrong. Super creepy. I love it!”

_ This idiot… _

“Ugh,” Shiki groaned. Rather than dignify Kuzuki’s nonsense, he elected to ignore her, and he unlocked the door to the detached building.

Ami followed him in, ambling behind him and curiously tilting her head this way and that as she stared like a magpie at everything that caught her momentary interest. She had, at least, shut up. Aside from inaudibly muttering to herself as she poked her nose into one corner after another, Ami kept quiet.

The detached building was not a large place. A long time ago, that had suited Shiki Nanaya just fine. That child had been fear-stricken at the time, and desperate for the protection of four walls; and even before and after that, he had been disinterested in the world and the worldly, and found himself satisfied with only a few tatami and the view from his window. Now, it suited Shiki Tohno equally fine. It took only ten minutes to thoroughly search the place, and confirm beyond doubt that no one had made their lair this side of the old walls; he was glad to be out of the rotting and haunted old place quickly.

… He hadn’t expected to find anything, but he’d had to make sure. If the rogue Touzaki was holed up anywhere, it was going to be in the basement, and Shiki doubted that he’d try anything so long as nobody else went down there.

So now he just needed to figure out how to get Miyako to leave without exploring the basement, and either without having to leave with her, or doing so in such a way that he could easily double back without her noticing. And he needed to figure out some way to chase Ami away, too. Maybe that second problem could be a solution to the first one? He pondered this as he stepped down the genkan and back into the daylight.

He was surprised to find Ami leaning against the doorframe just outside. He hadn’t even noticed when she stopped following him and went back outside, and even if he had noticed -

“What, you stopped and waited for me instead of running off? That’s unexpected.”

“Hey, it’s your house, ain’t it? Might as well let the master of the manor show me ‘round. Right?” Ami drawled, “Especially when it’s this creepy. Feels pretty cursed, and I’m pretty sure it’s haunted… or maybe that’s you?” She furrowed her brow. “Wait, there aren’t any poltergeists ‘round here, right? I ain’t about to get beheaded and eaten by a roving pack of youkai, right?”

“Actually, there’s supposed to be a nest of vengeful nekomata right under this old house, I think…” Shiki laughed, “the old man used to… well, a lot of cats died around here way back when, and the servants used to say they came back for revenge. I’ve never seen them, though!”

Ami looked pretty rattled by that, for a witch who claimed to be the nastiest monster around and spent so much time picking fights. Her eyes darted back and forth, and her lips were moving soundlessly, rolling un-cocked spells around her mouth until she found a silver bullet to load.

“Please don’t burn down the forest.”

Ami froze for a second.

“Or turn me into a frog,” Shiki added, with a distinctly tired tone.

That just caused her to cackle. Her body loosened up as she laughed, until she was bent over and swaying on her feet.

“Ha! Like hell! I got more style than that, dumbass! It’d be a bat. Or maybe a rabbit, or a spider. Those’re cute.”

“... Right.”

“‘Sides, I wouldn’t use fire for a nekomata. If Megami Tensei has taught me anything, it’s that they’re more likely to be weak to lightning.”

Shiki’s exasperation had spread from his voice onto his face now.

Ami’s cackling faded to giggling and then to nothing as she got as close to composing herself as she ever did.

“... So is that what the bouquet’s for? Gonna steal those kitty-cats hearts so they won’t kill ya?”

“Huh? Oh, this? No, that’s for someone else.” He’d almost forgotten about the last bouquet, actually. He’d been carrying it around all day, and it had slipped out of his mind.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

And then he started walking. The clearing was nearby. His last stop, before meeting back up with Miyako.

“So who’s it for? They got anything to do with the bad mojo out in the woods today?” Because she sure didn’t seem like she was going to go away on her own.

“My brother. Shut up for a bit and don’t bother me, okay.”

… and surprisingly enough, Ami stopped where she was, and hung back at the edge of the clearing while Shiki lay down his flowers.

There was silence. Shiki had nothing left to say, twelve years later, and it seemed neither the forest creatures nor the ghosts were willing to intrude.

When he started back the other way, he found Ami with her hands clasped. She was mumbling a prayer that Shiki didn’t recognise.

… he ended up leaning against a nearby tree, waiting for her to finish. After a minute or so, she un-clasped her hands, and shoved them in her pockets. She didn’t quite raise her head.

“... Did you know him? Before he died?” She whispered, not meeting his gaze.

“... I’m not really sure.” It was the honest truth.

“He… wasn’t really himself when he died. When I knew him. And I have memories from when he was himself, but they aren’t really my own, maybe. But I guess… No, I know. SHIKI was my brother, and I… or someone close enough… loved him, and he loved me… or that person. Just like he loved the rest of our family. And if I don’t take the time to remember him, no one else will. Even the people who know probably won’t ever stop to remember.”

Ami’s eyes turned skywards, as if looking into Heaven, and then returned downwards, roving restlessly, as if searching Hades, Naraka, and Yomi.

… This wasn’t a side of her that Shiki had ever seen before, and he was taken aback.

_ Has she always been this sensitive? I’ve never seen her act like she cared about anything except curing her boredom or harassing Miyako _

“... I don’t really get it,” she said eventually, “I thought I’d get it, ‘cause my brothers and sister are dead, too. And if I’d had any chance to know ‘em at all, even if it’s some funhouse mirror bullshit like that, I’d be happy. But it sounds like it’s more complicated for you, and I dunno what happened to your brother. But I guess I’m glad? That you had some kinda chance to know him, I guess.”

Ami paused, sighed, and looked up. 

“So you can tell me all about him!” She smiled. It was pearly and earnest and bright, and Shiki wondered if the tiny drop of sun-god in Ami’s blood wasn’t shining through, “Tell me everything! How he lived, how he died. You’re the only one who’ll remember him? I’ll be right there with you, remembering him too! And when you’re gone, I’ll keep remembering for you! After all -“

* * *

Miyako and Hisui’s little tour of the mansion had quickly found a routine. They’d wander down the halls door to door, chatting idly or in silence; if a door was locked, Hisui would produce the key from a slightly rusty ring in her pocket; then they’d go through each room one by one, giving it a quick search; if they didn’t find anything absolutely conclusive that needed to be followed up on urgently - and they didn’t - they’d move on to the next room.

So far, they’d discovered the following:

**1:** More dust than was probably healthy. They’d have left that where it was, given the choice, but way too much of it ended up in their lungs anyway.

**2:** An old painting Hisui had made as a child, depicting what Hisui insisted was a family of kittens, but Miyako couldn’t help but see as a plate of spaghetti and meatballs underwater (or maybe a variety of string cheeses with some crackers, or perhaps some very misshapen rotisserie chickens with unusual garnish, or just about anything except what Hisui claimed, pretty much. Hisui suspected that Miyako was starting to get hungry). That, they’d left stashed to retrieve afterwards.

**3:** An electric guitar and several very dated music CDs belonging to a resident of the mansion from before it had been owned by the Tohno family. Those had been left where they were, while Hisui made a mental note to try and contact Miss Aozaki about them.

**4:** Several handwritten erotic short stories that were more laughable than arousing. Miyako had surreptitiously pocketed them for future use. What that use was, she hadn’t yet decided, and would  _ not _ decide on until she’d worked out one wouldn’t get her murdered by Akiha.

**5:** Absolutely no trace of any intruders.

6: One room that Hisui had reacted to like it was toxic, and refused to talk about. It was also the only room in the mansion that seemed to have been disturbed, but Miyako hadn’t learned anything useful from it.

**7:** Absolutely nothing that could point them in the direction of the intruder.

**8:** Absolutely nothing that helped them figure out what the intruder was doing, beyond that he had visited that one room for reasons unknown.

**9:** That Miyako’s patience was not actually improving as much with age as she thought it was.

Miyako thudded down the stairs with her arms crossed behind her head. Hisui went ahead of her, dancing lightly, and reached the bottom while Miyako was barely past the halfway point.

“I hope Shiki’s having better luck than us…” She grumbled.

Hisui considered what that would mean for a moment and how much her idea of ‘good luck’ would actually line up with Miyako’s, and shot her a pointed look.

“It ain’t like I’m hoping he’s gotten into a deathmatch!” Miyako protested, “Just hoping he’s found  _ something _ .”

Hisui, on the whole, would prefer it if Shiki didn’t find anything. Any solid leads would probably fuel his determination and encourage him to throw himself in harm’s way. In fact, if he had found something, he had probably thrown himself into danger already, alone and without even the grace to let anyone know, out of some misguided protective instinct. She held back from voicing those thoughts, though.

“Maybe he ran into Ami,” she suggested instead.

“I hope not,” Miyako shuddered, and nearly lost her balance on the last step as a result, “Eh, better him than me. But if Kuzuki’s gonna keep hurling herself at tigers, I say let her get bit.”

Hisui laughed at that as she led the way down towards the first floor’s hallways.

“She’s sort of asking for it, isn’t she? But it’s partly my fault she even found out about this tiger, so I’d feel bad if I just let her get hurt. Anyway, can you really talk, when you’re doing the same thing?” The door to the kitchen creaked open.

“ _ I’m _ not doing it just for shits ‘n’ giggles! I’m doing it to protect people! … But I guess I’d feel pretty shitty if she got hurt and I didn’t do anything to stop her.” Miyako checked the food preparation areas for signs of use, while Hisui opened the trapdoor into the wine cellar and looked down.

“Mhm, right? So we should try to find her, too, before she has a chance to get herself into too much trouble. And - don’t  _ eat _ that!” Hisui returned to the main area of the kitchen just in time to snatch a decade-old hard candy, hidden in some corner until just seconds before, out of Miyako’s hands.

She looked nonplussed with that.

Sometimes, Hisui had trouble remembering that Miyako was not a child anymore, and especially that the gap between their ages was not all that large. Apparently, so did Miyako.

“I don’t want  _ you _ falling ill too…” For an oni constitution, even one as thin-blooded as Miyako, food-poisoning was rarely a concern, and the candy at least didn’t  _ look _ obviously dangerous, but that didn’t make her actions anything approaching  _ sensible _ . 

“‘Too?’ Is Akiha sick or something?”

No, Shiki-“ Hisui froze in the middle of shaking her head.  _ Ah… _ she hadn’t meant to let that slip.

“What are you talking about?” Miyako raised one quizzical eyebrow, “Wasn’t anything wrong with him this morning.”

“Forget I said anything…” Hisui shook her head, and was already on her way towards the door. 

“Like hell. You’re looking pretty damn worried about it, and he’s my brother, too, so I wanna hear this!”

“It doesn’t matter! I’m probably just worrying too much about nothing again.”

_ Right. That has to be it. _

_ … But it sounds even less convincing out loud than it did in my head. _

“... When have you  _ ever _ done that? I mean, you worry way too much, don’t get me wrong, but it’s never over nothing.”

Could she be blowing things out of proportion? Hisui considered this for a moment, then shook her head. No, not likely. And either way, she didn’t want to needlessly upset Miyako.

… Which, probably, was the same sort of thing Shiki had been thinking as he kept his problems hidden from the people who loved and worried about them.

“... Shiki’s anemia has been getting much worse,” Hisui explained, eventually, haltingly, doubtfully, “Um, you do know what his anemia really is, right?”

“It’s caused by his life force and not his blood, or something like that,” Miyako recited hazily, “But it’s hard to explain that to normal people and the symptoms are pretty much the same, so we all just pass it off as anemia. Right?”

Hisui nodded. That was close enough. Shiki survived, and only barely, on slightly more than half of a life force - a fraction reclaimed from his own murderer, and the rest, a gift from Akiha, torn from her own heart. It was not an arrangement that treated either of them well, and both had become terribly sickly; but for more of their lives than not, they had managed to keep themselves quite well. Speaking poetically, it was as if the two half-lives, lived together, became one whole. Except now…

“He’s been trying to hide it, but he’s been tired and weak all the time lately, even though he’s sleeping more. He’s passed out a few times, and sometimes he doesn’t quite pass, but it’s like he loses a few seconds - like he fell asleep standing up with his eyes open, or his brain just stopped for a moment. Akiha says his heartbeat is getting weaker, and she thinks it might sometimes stop during the night, when he’s sleeping. It’s like… he doesn’t have enough life in him, or it’s not enough to keep him going anymore. And then sometimes, his Mystic Eyes sort of… spark and flash, and it seems like it really hurts,” she fumbled to describe just what happened on those occasions. Grey irises burst without warning into vibrant blue tinged with purple, and the light danced like a miniature Tesla coil while his irises shook wildly. Shiki would be doubled over in pain, struggling to shut his eyes or claw them out and doing everything he could not touch anything despite the way his body would often be convulsing. And the lenses of his glasses - something happened to them that Hisui could not quite perceive, like ripples in the surface of the water, but in reverse and quaking in a manner that reminded her of some great force struggling to punch through a concrete wall.

And then it would be over, as suddenly as it started. And Shiki would wave it off as ‘nothing,’ and act like it hadn’t happened.

“I think… he’s dying.” Again. Again, again, again. And still! Even now! Here she was! Arriving too late, only to find him bleeding out on the ground with a hole in his chest! Shouting helplessly through a locked door as he wasted away trapped in the throes of madness because everyone had betrayed his trust, even himself, even her! Chasing after him while he threw away his last days so that no one other than him needed to worry!

Miyako stared at her, and she realised she was sobbing now. Clutching at her chest, trembling with furious emotion, mouth twitching between misery and anger. She did what she could to choke back the tears, and straighten herself out, but...

“That’s… no way, he was fine earlier,” Miyako shook her head and refused to meet her gaze anymore. Her brow was furrowed, her fists were clenched and shaking in mirror to Hisui’s own, and she looked like she was on the verge of literally biting her tongue to keep herself from accusing Hisui of lying.

… She believed every word of what Hisui said without question; she was desperately trying to find any reason to not to.

“... Nah. He’ll be fine in the end, just you watch.” She shook her head, and her whole body relaxed. Slowly at first, but gaining speed, her mouth split into a hard-set, confident - or perhaps just headstrong - smile.

“I hope you’re right,” Hisui sighed.

“And if he isn’t fine, I’ll kick his ass.” Miyako cracked her knuckles.

Hisui’s eyes widened for just a second, and then she closed them, She tilted her head down, slightly. Then she lifted it back up, eyes open, smiling. She held her fist, clenched tightly, in front of her, level with her chest.

“That’s right. We’ll... kick his ass. If he does die, we’ll just have to beat down the doors of hell and bring him back, right? Akiha did that once, so surely, the two of us together could, too.”

“What, you? You’re not strong enough to kick a paper bag’s ass,” Miyako laughed

“Don’t underestimate me, Miyako,” Hisui shook her head, jade eyes gleaming, “I’ve been taking lessons in baritsu. I’m not so helpless these days.” And, to prove her point, she threw a few playful jabs at the thin air, and then one last shot at Miyako, who watched it happen with all the affect of a lazy apex predator watching a drunken bird bouncing off of him.

_ I’ve been learning to fight with knives, too, but I’ll not use those on her, I think. _

“Aw, come on,” Miyako rolled her shoulders lazily, “That ain’t a real martial art. Some English bastard just threw savate and jujitsu in a blender and called it a new thing. Anyway, you only picked it up ‘cause you read about it in Sherlock Holmes or one of your other whodunnit books, didn’t you?”

“What does that make your kung-fu aikido Nanaya-taijutsu, then? You of all people should know, something made out of old pieces is still new, and if it’s good, it’s good. I don’t know what a ‘real’ martial art even is, but I know that I’m stronger than you think.”

Miyako murmured something Hisui did not quite catch, save the word ‘strongest,’ then said with a smile, “Ha! Alright then. On three. The law of victory has been decided! You ready for an ass-kicking!? One!”

Hisui pulled out a collapsible singlestick. Miyako cracked her knuckles. Hisui fell into a ready stance, singlestick fully extended. Miyako fell into a ready stance, arms tense.

Miyako opened her mouth. Even in the antebellum, everything already seemed to be slowing down. 

“Two!” 

Hisui didn’t think she could defeat a girl - a  _ woman  _ \- who could fell experienced fencers with her bare hands, not really, but this wasn’t quite about that. It was about forgetting the future and living perfectly in a single moment. It was about proving that she was not helpless. It was about proving that, even if she couldn’t always win, she could kick and struggle and seize her own fate.

… It was about having fun playing with her little brother’s little sister.

Hisui watched as Miyako’s mouth hung open uselessly for a fraction of forever before her words shook the air. Even in the world of a demon hunter’s in-born combat instincts, where time itself moved like thick honey, the end of the countdown was quicksilver.

“Three go!”

* * *

“How’d you - never mind. Magic that no one but you and your mom understands, right?” Shiki rolled his eyes, and Ami grinned in response.  _ Yeah, that’s right _ , she proudly thought. When people acknowledged that she was powerful beyond modern understanding, it never failed to put a smile on her face.

In this case, though, she actually hadn’t cast any spells.

“Doesn’t take a genius. Maybe you didn’t notice, since you came back right away, but you were pretty much dead on your feet a couple times in the forest there. You don’t have enough od to keep yourself alive, and cuz your body’s dead-ish, your soul’s come loose and it’s halfway to unraveling. Am I right?”

“Uh. It’s sort of complicated, and I don’t really understand it all myself, so-“

“It’s a yes-or-yes question, man.”

“... Uh, yes, then.”

“Ha!” Ami nodded, a self-satisfied look plastered all over her face. She seemed quite pleased with the accuracy of her deduction.

“... Right. Never mind. What were you saying before that? About wanting me to tell you about my brother?”

“Uh, I want you to tell me about your brother. And anyone else who’s part of that story. ‘Cause you said that no one’ll remember once you’re gone, but  _ I  _ wanna. And I wanna pass it on someday, too, so no one ever really forgets.”

Stories. It all came down to stories in the end. Ami Kuzuki understood this simple truth like no other. It wasn’t something she thought about, and she couldn’t put it into words. It wasn’t something she was even really conscious of. On levels higher and deeper than the foundations of her soul, written into the paper, she simply  _ understood _ . How could she not?

Ami Kuzuki was a pointless addition to a complete story. She was a silly character tacked on too long after the fact. Her existence was an ugly prolix on a tragedic tale that had touched untold hearts.

Ami Kuzuki was the continuation of a story that, against the best efforts of time and the grave and all odds, wasn’t finished. She was the happy ending deserved and until now denied. Her existence was a clear and joyous note that lifted hearts brought low by the former tragedy.

Ami Kuzuki was an unknown. No meaningful story would have her. Her existence could not possibly affect the hearts of the story’s lovers, because not a single one of them knew or acknowledged that she was part of it.

Ami Kuzuki was the heroine of a tale still being told. She was a pen and a page, filling up with every passing second, eager to see what happened next. The only heart she meant to touch was her own, but her story collided with, resonated with, and bounced off of the hearts around her; a precious and treasured few.

Everyone was a story. Everything was a story. Every story looked a little different to every pair of eyes that looked at it. No story would ever quite go away. Even the stories never told fell like droplets into the hearts of their authors and rippled outwards to the people around them, faint but everlasting.

Even the most personal tragedies meant something to someone. There was a heart out there somewhere inspired by, beating because of, beating  _ for _ the deaths and vengeance in her family from long ago.

So it went against her most basic instincts to let a story fade unheard into history, or be replaced with another story entirely. If it could be passed down, it should be; preserved so as to never fade, existing alongside the would-have-been replacement story, each boasting its own virtues and flaws.

“Sorry, but no,” Said Shiki, walking away from the clearing and the bouquet and the memories and Ami’s request, “It’s better if you just forget about it.”

“Huh?” Ami blinked, wide-eyed. She hadn’t actually considered, even for a moment, that this conversation wouldn’t go her way. It was like… It was as if…

… She couldn’t come up with a good simile. It was unexpected and disastrous! She gestured widely with her arms to convey the magnitude of it all - presumably to a nearby squirrel, because no one else was looking at her. Even the squirrel gave her an odd look before he skittered away. Ami watched it go for a second, before remembering that there was somebody else she was supposed to be chasing.

“Hey, hey, hey! Hold it! Fuck do you mean, ‘no!?’” Shiki was already a good distance away, and she took off running to catch up.

“If you have to ask what ‘no’ means, I don’t think you’re literate enough for this anyway,” Shiki slouched forwards and heaved a tired sigh. He also started walking a little faster.

Ami jumped in front of him, waving her arms wildly. Unfortunately, she made the mistake of blinking, and suddenly Shiki had already gotten past her.

“Not! What I meant!” She shouted, already returning to her pursuit, which by now had left the forest depths and now followed the mansion walls, “C’mon, tell meeee!”

Shiki sighed again. He looked exhausted enough that one might’ve thought him a marathon loser as he said, “Oh, well, in  _ that  _ case…  _ No _ . What’s the point of telling anyone about it? You especially should be worrying about your here and now, not my, and  _ his _ , past. This family’s troubles go to the grave with us. Leave them buried where they belong.”

“‘Death is the only water to wash away this dirt,’ huh?” Ami quoted, with deeply out-of-place and unearned gravitas.

“Something like that, yeah.”

“Well, that’s  _ stupid _ , then. I don’t think death can save anything, and ain’t no story that’s just ‘dirt.’ I’d know, right? Even if it sucked for you, someday long after you’re gone, somebody’ll love it so much that it’s why they’re still alive. Somebody’ll learn something about themselves from it, and get better. Somebody’ll be inspired by it, and write a new story from it, and  _ that  _ story’ll save somebody, teach somebody, inspire somebody. And the story born from _ that _ … Eh. You get the idea. It’s all about ripples, and hell, you can’t just un-ripple the water. Somebody out there’s already been affected by the whole thing, and someday some archeologist type’ll work backwards and figure some of it out and then people’ll know half the story anyway. Our stories could mean anything to anyone, and it’s not up to us. Tell a life as interestin’ as you can make of yourself, and leave it to someone else down the road who might just love it, I’m saying. Even if it’s sad and stupid and mean, it shouldn’t just be forgotten.” And if it were told to Ami, it certainly wouldn’t be. She took a lot of pride in her memory; even if she didn’t always remember at her convenience, she never, ever forgot.

Shiki’s feet came to a stop. With his hands in his pockets, he tilted his head back, and stared upwards. Ami couldn’t quite follow his eyes - maybe something on the other side of a high window, maybe something under the eaves, maybe the sky beyond. He continued to do so, in silence, until Ami started fidgeting impatiently.

“I get what you’re saying,” Shiki spoke at length, “but… honestly, I’d prefer that. I’m happy just passing into the fog. Peacefully, you know? I don’t want to make waves like that. Hey, maybe you should be a novelist.”

“Thought about it! Too much writing, tho’. Bo- _ ring _ , right? I don’t got time for spelling ‘n’ grammar, you know. Just spells and… damn. What’s a word that sounds like ‘grammar,’ but it’s a magic thing? Gandr! Spells and Gandr! Yeah.”

“Do you even know how to cast Gandr? Isn’t that a little bit,” he motioned vaguely with his hands, “below your grade level or something? You don’t do normal people magic.  _ Normal people _ , as if; everyone who uses magic is some kind of ridiculous jackass.”

“That’s right! And I’m the most ridiculous jackass of all, and don’t you forget it!”

“As if I could,” Shiki grumbled under his breath. Although, if he were being honest, there was one mage he could think of who exceeded Ami in that regard. That is, if he were to believe the stories he’d heard. His mental image of  _ that  _ woman would always be the face she’d showed him; a kind, wise, patient face that understood the value of life, the ease of death, and the pleasure of simply waking up every morning still breathing. The storied madly destructive freelance mercenary who broke time itself over her knee as suited her and his beloved sensei had as much to do with each other as the grandfather clock Akiha kept in the living room and the stray calico cat that hung out near his flower shop.

“... And no, I don’t cast Gandr. It’s just a pun, loser.”

“I got that. It works better as a pun if it’s something you actually do, though. Doesn’t it?” By now, they’d completed most of their journey, and the old iron doors were well in sight. Shiki quickened his pace, “If you say you don’t have time for one thing, only this other thing that’s a pun on the first thing, but you don’t actually do the second thing, the pun sort of falls apart, right? The words sound alike, but the connection that makes it mean anything just isn’t there.”

“Uhhhhh…” Ami tilted her head. There was a vacant look in her eyes, and she was scratching furiously at the back of her neck.

Shiki twisted the doorknob, sighing, “... I’ve been listening to Akiha talk about her process too much.”

“But she doesn’t really do puns, does she? I read that first novel of hers, and I don’t think there was a single one. Is that why she’s only managed to get that one published? The rest are all just pun-der storms?” Ami tilted her head quizzically as she sauntered loosely and jauntily through the doorway after Shiki, who ignored her entirely, his attention elsewhere.

More pressing was -

“Wh- Hisui!?” Standing there, beside the stairs, bruised but smiling face framed by unkempt red hair, was somebody who absolutely, definitely, with certainty, should not have been there.

“Ah! Miyako~!” While Shiki processed that, Ami launched herself full force at the girl sitting on the stairs beside Hisui.

“Oh! Shiki!” The smile faded from Hisui’s face, suddenly as stern as a ship sinking bow-first.

“Oh shit! Kuzuki!” Miyako’s grimace was barely visible for a fraction of a second before a black-white blur collided with her and became a black-white-brown bur as Ami’s tackling hug smoothly became an expert throw that left the half-Greek witch flat on the floor.

Hisui’s shoes tap-tap-tapped on the tile floor, barely audible over Ami’s laughter and Miyako’s growling.

“Master. Shall we return home?” Hisui’s tone took on a faux-deferential air, and Shiki smiled in a crooked, awkward way reminiscent of a child caught poking at a mousetrap.

Ami did a backflip back onto her feet. Her wide, thin grin, sparkling eyes, and slouched posture had over the years refined themselves into a message, and she knew Miyako got it, because the stockier girl scowled at the sight. It was beautiful, and in Ami’s story, everything but herself and Miyako had just become mere stage dressing. Shiki was panicking, asking questions. Hisui was responding with passive-aggression. Ami just didn’t care; white noise background music scene setting.

A spinning kick, whirling like a tornado, short and sharp. Miyako moved with liquid grace, flowing out of the way without even raising her fists. Ami redirected her momentum into a stumbling, tumbling overhead somersault kick, and Miyako responded without kind; effortlessly sidestepping Ami’s attacks without even striking back.

There was a deafening crack as tile shattered under Ami’s heavy-booted blow.

Ami laughed harder. Miyako scowled harder.

“Listen… thing’s… okay…”

“How c… say… at!?” Voices drifted on the edge of Ami’s awareness. She heard, but did not listen.

She vanished from view, and set foot on the ground some eleven metres away… and some eleven metres away from that, and just as far from there, too. She was one in place, then she was in another. In front of Miyako, behind her, above, beside, whispering in her ear and - reaching out to take Miyako in her arms, squeeze the fight out of her, and throw her to the floor.

Nothing reached Miyako. Ami had nothing to express that ever could.

Miyako slipped through her grasp. Again, again, again.

“I’m  _ sick  _ of this,” one of only three voice she could never, ever in her life ignore, “You can’t keep doing this, Kuzuki. I won’t put up with it forever.”

One last try. It felt final, for some reason - like if she failed to bewitch Miyako’s heart here, she’d never have another chance, and she’d lose Miyako forever. But she was destined to do this forever, wasn’t she? This story would spin in circles until her love was requited, because Ami couldn’t and wouldn’t leave the wheel. Until the day she could tell Miyako how much she loved her, in this language that she knew better than Japanese and Greek combined, she’d keep up this raging dance.

Ami lunged, arm outstretched, palm forward. She knew where to strike, knew how. Pressure points and some other almost-magic. Her fingers curled. Everything was so slow, so, so, slow. There, in Miyako’s chest. _This time, definitely! I’ll take her heart!_ _I’m a born assassin and a wicked witch, My magic is better than anyone’s. I might be stupid and troublesome, but I’m a good and kind person, too. I’m weird and wrong and not human, but so is she! I could seize the moon itself if I really wanted to! Compared to that, catching my tiger by the heart is -_

Miyako breathed deeply. The sound was deafening in this world of time that flowed like thick honey. A vision danced in front of Ami’s eyes, all red-white-wild-horned, and fury gathered in its fist. She blinked, and there was only Miyako, moving, and Ami adjusted her momentum, turning her aim, but even so, even still -

“We’re going home!” The shout shook the air. It was almost an order, almost a statement of fact, and even Ami couldn’t help but stop and listen.

Hisui bowed politely, stiff as stone, and Ami found herself wishing that she’d been paying a little more attention, and could’ve watched the over-formal air give way to that impassioned soundblast and then slip right back.

“Shiki, Miyako. Thank you for your concern, and I appreciate that you were only looking to help. Ami, I’m sorry I got you involved -“

“I totally did that on my own, though,” Ami fumed.  _ I may be stupid, but it’s my own damn stupidity! Don’t you take credit for it, bitch! _

“- but that’s enough, all of you. This is the responsibility of the Tohno head, not ours. When my mistress returns, if you still wish to be involved, ask her to allow you to lend your aid. For now, all four of us are leaving.”

“You’re not my mama,“ Ami jeered, (and “What are you, twelve?” Said Miyako) “You can’t tell me what to… why are you on your phone?”

“The Tohno family keeps a close eye on all known supernatural elements in the city, and maintains regular contact with the more congenial ones, especially a certain family we have an agreement with to keep them hidden from the Church and Association,” Hisui said simply, scrolling through her contacts list, “And as it happens, I have their phone numbers right here. Would you like me to call your parents to come pick you up, Ms. Kuzuki?”

Ami’s face paled, inasmuch as her albino complexion could possibly get any whiter. She shook her head mutely.

“What are you, twelve?” Miyako repeated, incredulously.

Hisui bowed again, and for a moment, Ami thought she saw an impish smile.

“Then, let us be on our way. Have you had lunch yet? I’d be happy to treat you.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Ami slouched, embarrassed at how easily she’d been defeated by words that didn’t even have any magic behind them, “Do I get a say in where? There’s a Chinese restaurant downtown I like… My, uh, uncle used to work there part-time.”

“Ah, am I included in that offer?” Shiki, awkwardly silent until just now, spoke up.

“I happen to know that you can afford to pay for yourself quite comfortably.”

“Right, right, but the flower shop doesn’t really turn a huge profit, and Akiha doesn’t actually let me have an allowance, she just sort of buys things for me, so I don’t actually…” Shiki raised his hands in a placatory gesture, although his expression looked more bemused than conciliatory.

Hisui ignored him, instead motioning to Miyako and asking her, “Do you have any preferences, Miyako? I know you like Chinese food, so I’d be happy to treat you, as well.”

“Hey, hey, hey, what, am I just goin’ along with this too?” Miyako frowned, “I don’t remember saying that.”

“I could call Mom to come pick you up, if you’d prefer!” Shiki chimed in. They’d never know it, but all three women in the room were united in thinking that, for all the effort he’d gone to in the first place, he was giving in with remarkable ease.

“A’ight, I’m going, I’m going.” Miyako picked herself up off the stairs - having sat back down as soon as Ami was distracted - and dusted herself off.

“What  _ are  _ you,  _ twelve _ ?” Ami mockingly mimicked. Miyako glowered at the exaggerated imitation of her inflections, but brushed past without a word.

“Alright,” Hisui sighed as she allowed her posture to slacken at last, “Let’s be on our way, then.”

“Akiha’s gonna tear me to shreds for this,” Shiki muttered. He took one last glance into the mansion, staring up at the second-floor landing with a faraway look in his eyes. Then, he turned to follow Hisui out the door.

Ami slouched in the corner for a second, sighing and mentally rifling through the spells she knew for something she could use to get away cleanly. Coming up with nothing that wouldn’t end up with  _ someone _ on her ass, she started after the rest of the group.

She stopped for the briefest of seconds, looking the same direction Shiki had been. But just like in the forest, whoever was haunting him just wouldn’t show for her. She couldn’t help but wonder what stories there were to be told there…

There was a  _ click _ as Hisui set her hand on the doorknob and turned. And…

* * *

Shiki rested his chin on his knuckles, admired the burning spiderweb that now filled his vision, and asked: “So is there anything special I have to do to wake up? If I have to fight Kishima again, I’m going to keep sleeping.”

“Fight  _ Kishima _ ? Wh- forget it, we don’t have time for that. You said it yourself, earlier. This is a story;  _ end it _ . Exit the outline. Go off-script. Shred it entirely. That third-rate author can’t keep up if his characters won’t do as they’re told.”

Shiki nodded, “So, in that case…”

Although he could see nothing except black and red, he walked forwards, knelt down, and held out his hand.

Something sharp and barely less pitch-black and deathly as the rest of the world sang past his cheek, drawing blood.

Shiki continued to hold out his hand.

“I know you’re part of the story, but you have to understand what’s happening by now, right? There’s no more reason to fight.”

“Of course there is!” Spat back the voice of the figment called the Tiger Queen, smaller than it had been before, “You are my enemy. I was created to be your enemy. I was created to… be killed by you.”

“Being killed isn’t something you should take so lightly. Is that really what you want? Death doesn’t save anyone. It won’t make you whole.”

“I’m not taking this lightly!” Another red flash against the red-black, blurring past without touching him. Was her aim getting worse? “What would you know? You’re  _ real _ ,  _ alive _ .  _ You’re  _ free to choose,  _ you  _ never had a purpose in the first place, and  _ you  _ got to find your own sense of self, but  _ I _ am a lie that only exists so you can kill me, and that is my life.”

“Don’t waste your breath on that thing,” Akiha chided, “it’s just... paper. It’s not alive, and it’ll burn with the rest of this fake.”

“... Tch,” Just a second later, a heartbeat before Shiki voiced his reply, she clicked her tongue and set her jaw so hard it seemed as if she was trying to crush his words in her mouth.

“Everything’s alive, and every second is precious. My eyes are proof of that, right? I can see the death of everything, but if you look at it the other way around, that means everything has to be alive, at least in some way. And I’m ‘just paper,’ too, remember? Shikigami are paper dolls, after all.”

Akiha glanced away sourly. It didn’t accomplish much. Shiki could not see her face, but he could feel every slight twitch like it was his own, and he felt irked by his own words and the things they reminded Akiha of. And, even before she opened her mouth, he heard her words:  **Fine. Do whatever you want.**

“Fine. Do whatever you want.”

“I was going to anyways, really…” And, to the things she didn’t say, he replied, “Sorry, I shouldn’t have used that against you. Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere. I might be just a shikigami, but I’m a shiki you made, so I don’t tear so easily.”

“That has nothing to do with me. It’s your own ridiculous, stupid, bullheadedness that makes you so hard to get rid of,” said the most stubborn person in the room.

**Excuse me,** **_who_ ** **is the most stubborn? I’ll have you know my patience rivals an angel’s.** **_You’re_ ** **the one who only ever** **_pretends_ ** **to give up on things. And that thing over there is still trying to kill you while it dies. By comparison, I am a** **_fucking_ ** **Buddha!**

Shiki chuckled to himself -  _ sorry, sorry. But you know, Akiha, you’re definitely the most strong-willed woman I know, and isn’t that just another kind of stubbornness? _ \- and redirected his attention back to the other living lie.

“... You were created with a hole in you, and the pieces they gave you to fill it just don’t fit right,” he smiled softly and continued to hold out his hand, “Believe it or not, I know how that feels. You and I, we’re just convenient lies someone told. And I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can save you.”

And he continued to hold out his hand, without flinching, without hesitating, without withdrawing.

“I know, it’s not fair. But, at least, there is something I can do for you. I can give you a little bit of peace and friendship before we go our separate ways.”

… and was rewarded with the sensation of another hand, a small and childlike hand that reminded him of long ago days and a green-eyed girl with red bows in her hair, grasping his own. Hesitantly, at first, then a little more tightly.

He pulled the Tiger Queen closer and wrapped his other arm around her shoulders.

“What was the point of me? Why was my story told?  _ Why do I have to die? _ ”

“Everyone dies. That fate is the one thing everyone has in common, the future we all share. The only difference is when, and what you make of it.”

“I’m still afraid.”

“There’s no one in this world who wouldn’t be shivering if they could see the thirteen steps to the gallows. It’s only natural to curse the living and lash out when it’s like that. But, you know… you may only be thirteen steps from the gallows now, but doesn’t that also mean that there are still thirteen more steps before you reach the gallows? You and I can’t have a ‘normal’ happiness, but… I think we’re probably going to be happy. We can find thirteen things that’ll make you happy before this dream is over.”

“There isn’t anything that makes me happy,” she shook her head, “You’ve been there for my entire life, so you know that I don’t know anything except what was written for me.”

“We’ll have to find something, then.”

“I find a good drink helps,” Akiha cut in, and Shiki wondered if he should perhaps be doing more to try and reign in her drinking problem,  **which of course she did not have** .

“... I think I’d just like to talk. What is it like, living? I want to know, even if I never get to try it. And I want to ask, what happens after I die? And will I come back?”

“Then,” Shiki smiled, “Let’s talk.”

And so they did. They talked about many, many things. About Shiki’s family, about how they were strange and sad and broken and  _ healing  _ and  _ loved _ , loved fully and freely. About his wife Akiha - proud and arrogant and unwilling to ever ask for help no matter how much she was struggling with the weight on her shoulder, possessive and protective and always always always exhausting herself for someone else, stone-faced and prickly and burning storming  _ whirling  _ with emotions like sorrow and joy and love that she felt so intensely and hid out of long-conditioned dishonesty; and, of course, quite quick to object with ogre-like force whenever she felt her husband was being unfair or inaccurate. About their apartment in the city, far from modest but perhaps closer to Earth than the grand mansion grave they’d fled, and how they cherished their time with a woman named Hisui who was something like their sister and acted something like a caretaker.

Shiki spoke almost feverishly, explaining it all with love. The Tiger Queen nodded along, wished she could’ve been part of it, and decided that, for this life, to experience it vicariously would be enough.

As they spoke, the dream unraveled. Even with his glasses back on, Shiki could see more and more of the landscape being eaten by void-dark holes and frays.

“I see,” Muttered Akiha, distracted from the conversation for a moment, “Making peace was a greater defiance of the story than what I was doing. I suppose that hack understands solving problems with violence enough to be prepared for that. It’s kindness this story isn’t prepared for, perhaps.”

And still they continued to talk. They spoke of senseless things, like carefree days. Shiki remembered a grass field and the noonday sun on the day he was born, and an older field and a moon secreted away on the day he was reborn, and he spoke of those, too.

Until, at last…

The Tiger Queen smiled sadly as her own body began to quickly vanish.

“I wonder what’s going to happen to me,” she said, “I was written into being, so when I die, do I simply become ink on paper? But my paper was your dreams, so will I become part of you? And afterwards, will I just disappear? Do I have a soul that can reincarnate?”

“I think you do. No, after talking with you like this, I  _ know  _ you do. And if you’re part of me, then I’ll keep you safe until the wheel comes around again.”

“Thank you,” she replied.

* * *

…

…

“... So, uh, was I just supposed to wake up there, or…?” Miyako folded her arms impatiently. ‘Wakey wakey,’ SHIKI had said, and then he had stood there grinning like an idiot for nearly a minute.

“Listen, it’s not like I’ve ever done this before. I ain’t got it down to a science here.” SHIKI shrugged, “I guess we gotta, like, destroy it from the inside or whatever.”

Miyako swiveled her head this way and that, looking around at the empty apartment she and SHIKI had trashed during their fight a moment ago.

“No, uh…” SHIKI clarified, “the shithead who put you under thinks he’s Natsumi Shakespeare or whatever, so he built this all like a boring book. You wanna wake up, you gotta go against the plot.”

Miyako, in lieu of an answer, walked away. She came to a stop beside the doorway, craning her neck around it to look into the hallway. Across from them, the door of her own apartment was shut tightly. That was what she and Shiki had agreed on, her memory said - if there was some kind of danger, then she was to take shelter inside and stay as safe as she could.

_ Right, because SHIKI… uh… our SHIKI, not the one walking up behind me… doesn’t exist in this dream, looks like. _

Of course, if she knew Shiki, her wife ( _ girlfriend, really _ , she reminded herself), there was a pretty good chance she was at the peephole, biting her nails. Which was why Miyako was staying hidden.

She tilted her head back towards SHIKI, who had taken up leaning against the wall catercorner from her.

“And if I’d rather keep dreaming?”

“You don’t, though. Am I right?”

“If I keep dreaming, then I don’t have a single responsibility anymore. No more tea ceremony, no family name, none of that. No past, no tradition, no expectations, no future. Rolling over and going back to sleep sounds pretty nice.” Miyako tilted her head forwards, letting her hair fall across her face.

SHIKI looked up at the ceiling, grinning.

“And that’s why, right? You’re too much of a stodgy old-fashioned grandma to just let go of all that. You’re the kind of idiot who can’t just  _ not _ keep to tradition and forget her responsibilities.”

“Insulting me ain’t a great way to get me to agree with you.”

“Let me finish, dumbass.”

“Y’know, if it’s just gonna be more insults -“

“And you can’t just stop fighting, either. Can you? I saw, you tried that once, it didn’t work. So what, I’m supposed to believe that you’re just gonna give up on the real world  _ and _ the future you want? You’re  _ stupid  _ stubborn, kid, and damn strong, too. You’ll kick and claw until you find a way to make it all work for you. Like, for instance, if you’re the only heir to a tea ceremony school, and you happen to have a girlfriend who’s a real big fan of tea ceremony…?”

“Oh, I see what you’re saying… but that only works if she could marry into my family, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but that sort of thing can’t happen here.”

“In the end, isn’t it the family head that decides those things? That might be you someday, and hell, I don’t get the idea you’re mom and dad are so close-minded. I mean, they took that natural-born killer of ours into their fold pretty easy.”

“Don’t talk about my brother like tha-”

“But if they do say you gotta marry someone, you still got time. Doubt your parents are retiring for another decade or two. Who’s to say this country won’t change in that time if you, of all people, decide to kick up a fuss and fight?”

"So, ’If you have the motivation, I don't think anything in this world is impossible. First, you have to start moving. If you move, something will start,’” Miyako quoted, slowly, “... Right?”

“I have no idea why you said it like that, but yeah!” SHIKI gave her a crooked thumbs-up.

“... Uh-huh. Right, let’s say I even believe what you’re selling me - why do you even care so much? It’s pretty weird for the serial killer from way back when to show up to save me. Even then, you could just, like, eat me or whatever. That’d end the story pretty fast.”

“Because…” SHIKI threw an arm around her shoulder, and she nearly fell right over as he pulled her close, held her under his shoulder, and started ruffling her hair, “You’re my little brother’s little sister. That makes you  _ my _ little sister, too. And I protect my family!”

“Stop that. But… thanks, I guess. Y-”

Miyako let out a strained gasp. SHIKI’s arm tightened around her, and his friendly grasp was suddenly a crushing chokehold.

“And besides, it seemed like you needed to be reminded who the  **real monsters** are,” his teeth were shark-like, suddenly, as he bared them in a sharp rictus, and a dark fire burned in his narrowed eyes, “Not some thin-blood like you, who probably couldn’t invert properly even if she wanted to. You’re practically not even a real oni. You’re the protagonist of this story, not the evil demon.  **I’ll show you what it means to be a killer** .”

“That’s right. That’s right, isn’t it? I  _ am _ the protagonist here. I guess I forgot.” In the face of danger, she smiled. Always. He had her in an iron grip, now, but she shoved her way out of it; and now they were face to mirror-image-grinning face.

“And if this story’s gonna end, the hero ain’t gonna live through it. That’ll tear up the script pretty good.”

“Just try me. I’m not just gonna roll over. Maybe I  _ will  _ live, long enough to see myself become the villain. Maybe  _ I’ll _ eat  _ you _ alive instead! That’s not part of the outline either, I’ll bet.”

“You’d be a pretty shitty bad guy, forget about it. I’ll rip you to shreds!”

“Save your words. I’ll tear you to pieces.”

As if. This fight, for the first time in a long, long time, was a sure loss. But she’d go ripping, tearing, kicking, screaming, biting. Right back to the real world.

She clenched her fists harder, feeling the bones grind. The knuckles were bloody. There were deep gashes across the backs of her hands.  _ But you should see the other guy _ .

And she’d remember, once she got back. She wrote her own story, where she’d always be the hero. In her mind, she’d somehow become the villain, the monster, like a half-baked tragedy. It hadn’t been the first time, and it probably wouldn’t be the last - it wasn’t a habit she could overcome with one big epiphany; learning came from repetition, though, and eventually she’d get it memorised.

She wiped the blood from her face with her one good arm, and wrenched the eyelid of her suddenly empty left socket shut. Her knees threatened to give out beneath her.

She couldn’t win this fight now, after thinking like that so long. But some distant day, there’d be a curtain call, and there she’d be. A true-blue superhero, strong as a whole squadron of superhumans, with a whole ultra-rich life of it behind her; she’d be powerful enough then to Rider Kick SHIKI’s grinning skull straight to hell.

…  _ But he’d greet me with open arms _ , Miyako thought, the taste of iron on her tongue.

_ He’s not the bad guy either,  _ she thought, even as he tore her heart from her chest and bit into it,  _ he’s just playing a part _ . She knew his story, a little bit. This kind of thing wasn’t part of it. This was more like… his way of scaring her straight. ‘Don’t end up like me,’ he was saying.

“More like, ‘You can’t end up like me, so stop worrying so much about it. That’s a different grave from mine, but it’s still one big hole you’re walking into.’ Anyway, tell that idiot on the other side that if he shows up where we are too soon, I’ll double-kill him, okay? And if I’m still floating around when  _ you _ come, I’ll beat the dying daylights outta you so hard you’ll come right back to life!” He said, the last and only sound ringing in her ears.

_ See you on the other side somewhere, big bro, _ were the last words that crossed her mind before her eyes snapped open.

* * *

Silence lingered heavy in the air.

Hisui’s gaze was downcast; Kohaku smiled, the same as always.

“This won’t do, Hisui! You have to wake up soon. Shiki, Akiha, Miyako, and everyone else, they’re all waiting for you! It’s your job to take care of them, isn’t it?” Kohaku wagged her finger playfully. Hisui watched it as if hypnotised. The motion was so familiar that it had long disappeared from her notice, until suddenly it wasn’t even around to ignore. It wasn’t so much something that Hisui had forgotten, as never remembered in the first place.

Even as she opened her mouth to speak, her entranced eyes followed that wagging finger back and forth.

“I know,” she said at length, “But I - Is it too selfish of me, to want to spend longer with you?”

She felt a sudden pressure and warmth at her chin - and Kohaku pushed her face up until it was level with her own.

_ What a beautiful colour. I forgot. Is twelve years really all it took me to forget what my own sister looked like? _

“Of course it is. I’m dead and gone, Hisui. I won’t try and tell you I had a good life, but I had my one lifetime, and I’m satisfied. You did everything you could for me, and I really am grateful - but now it’s all yours. Your life, I mean! The person you used to be existed for my sake, but you can’t let me keep dragging you down anymore.”

_ Her voice, too. I didn’t know what it sounded like anymore _ . They were the same, always the same, so identical, they couldn’t be told sort of not for their eyes, but if she looked in the mirror, she’d never see her sister; if she listened to her own voice, she’d never hear her sister.

… and, twelve years is a long enough time for twins to grow apart.

Hisui sobbed. Her arms were tense, fists clenched white. Her whole body quivered. Tears welled at the corners of her eyes, wrenched shut, and began to stream down her face.

“I… I’ve been trying, I really have,” she choked out, “But I can’t just  _ forget  _ you. And I… and… Most of my life, I spent as that person, and I don’t know how to stop being her. I’m trying, I swear, as hard as I can, but I just - I can’t do it.”

“I know, and you’ve done a better job than you think, and I’m so proud of you. You know that, right? You really have come so far. I just wanted to give you a little push - because you can go so much further, if you want to.” Kohaku might’ve been wagging her finger again, but Hisui couldn’t have seen it through her tears, even if her eyes had been open.

Hisui felt something on her chest. The warmth of Kohaku’s hands, as she fiddled with something held within them and pinned it to Hisui’s apron. Softly, she brushed it with her own hands, feeling it. It was a flower, she realised, at the same instant as a soft, subtle scent pricked her nose - a sunflower, Kohaku’s favourite.

“You can’t keep it once you wake up, but it’s a parting gift from me. I hope you have a good life. You better not let Akiha and Shiki kick the bucket too soon, you hear me? Now go on! Just forget about me. This dream you’re having, it was all about me, so if you do that, you’ll have no trouble waking up. And then… well, I guess it’s up to you. What are you now, thirty-something? I guess you wouldn’t know any better than I would. You’re not an old maid yet, that’s still a whole lot of future ahead of you. And I know you’ll make the best of it!”

“I have to - there’s so much I need to say, I can’t just leave.”

“Yeah, you can. You have to.”

Hisui forced her watery eyes open, wiped away the tears, and held back from crying more as best she could.

Kohaku was standing right in front of her, close enough to wrap her arms around and hug, smiling bittersweetly. She looked the same as she had the day she died.

“It’s time to say goodbye.” Kohaku tilted her head to the side, eyes closed, smiling a little wider.

“... No! I… No, there’s still… Ah… you’re right, like always,” Hisui straightened her back, ramrod straight. Her hands unclenched, she let the tension slip from her body, which was ceasing to quiver.

She turned around, and walked away.

“Farewell, Kohaku. Until we meet again. I love you! I always will!”

“... Yeah. Love you too, sis.”

* * *

Ami snarled as she whirled around and around, snapping her arms in random directions and spitting out incomprehensibly slurred Ancient Greek. The image around her wavered, the tall buildings and evening sun would distort, shift, or even disappear - and quickly be replaced with something else.

“This is… Man, screw this shit! This is bullshit!”

“You seemed to have it figured out a second ago…” Satsuki sighed.

“Yeah, well, lass, turns out it’s hard to use my magic from inside this fuckin’ dream. I mean, all the mana here isn’t real, it’s part of the dream, so I can’t actually, like…  _ use  _ it, if the dream doesn’t want me to.” That, and the way Ami used her magic was less scalpel, and more sledgehammer - with rocket propulsion and a built-in grenade launcher - which wasn’t exactly ideal for fiddling with delicate mental interference.

Satsuki rested her cheek in her hand and asked, “So does that mean you can’t take it apart?”

“If I were standing on the outside, I could just blow it away like  _ that _ ,” she snapped her fingers, “but standing over here… Shit, I’ll figure it out.”

The soft chime of a bell rang out, as the pavement beneath their feet was stripped away and the concrete walls were torn down to nothing. And soundlessly, a slightly different back alley was inserted in its place.

“Or, you know, we could try another way. Once you know you’re in a dream, I don’t think it’ll be too hard… at least, based on what Miss Kohaku said, and she knows a little bit about witchcraft… uh, I think.”

“I am not letting myself get beaten by some fudging two-bit amateur-hour cantrip, I will tear this lame spell  _ right  _ a-fudging part with my  _ better  _ magic if it kills me… why the  _ fudge  _ did I just say fudging?”

“... Eh?” Satsuki looked as confused as Ami. Wordlessly, she mouthed a few words, and found her lips shifting in ways she didn’t intend, “That’s weird. What on… Oh! Miss Black Cat!”

A small black cat, wearing a large ribbon on her back, alighted on the pavement beside Satsuki. She sat with her head tall, proud and daring any lowlife around just to try and impugn her dignity. A bell jingled sweetly every time she moved.

“Oh, yeah, you don’t like it when I swear, do you…” Ami muttered, glancing down at the cat, “No - hold on! Why are you even here, Len?”

Ami jabbed her finger at the dark kitten, but Len said nothing, and Ami visibly deflated.

“Keeping an eye on me for Mama, were ya? Oi. I can take care of myself.”

Len tilted her head, and made no sound except the jingling of bells.

“Okay,  _ yeah _ , but…”

“You know Len?” Interrupted Satsuki.

“Huh? ‘Course. She’s my Mama’s familiar. She was a stray or something like that, Mama picked her up back when I was a kid.” Len nodded a confirmation along with Ami’s explanation, and apparently added her own silent input, “... Yeah, her last master died, like, in the Middle Ages. Yeah, yeah, Age of Enlightenment or whatever. How the fudge did you last that long, anyway? And then she ran into my Mama while she was here with her vampire babysitter, and the rest’s history! Pretty much. How do  _ you  _ know her?”

“We run into each other a lot, actually, just where and whenever. She likes to hang out with us ghosts sometimes, maybe so we don’t get ourselves into trouble or something? These days, we mostly exist as dreams in a certain someone’s sleep, so for a dreamweaver like her, we must be… But I’d say we’re friends, really - right, Miss Black Cat?” And again, Len nodded her assent. Ami also nodded, although she’d really only been halfway paying attention.

She flopped to the pavement - which had taken on a grainy texture akin to sidewalk chalk - and sat there, gangly legs crossed loosely, head listing to the side with her fist pressed against her cheek and her elbow on her knee.

“So you came to bail me out, huh? I mean, if I can’t swear, you gotta have control over the whole dang thing already.”

She scratched Len behind the ears with her free hand, which the kitten accepted with a certain degree of affected reproach and a lot of pleased squinting, “You sure you wanna waste your time on that? You saw it, right? I got handed my perfect family I always wished for, and you weren’t even part of it. You really gonna go out of the way to save a lass who couldn’t even be bothered to remember you?”

“Of course!” Satsuki answered in Len’s stead without the slightest hesitation. Len herself merely tilted her head to the side.

“Miss Black Cat isn’t that kind of person! We’ve all gotten so caught up in what we want that we lose sight of what we have before. It’s not, like, some kinda capital crime. … Uh, maybe I’m not the person to be saying that - for, um, a few reasons - but Len wouldn’t abandon you for such a silly reason.”

Ami leaned back, and turned her face toward the sky. Len jumped into her lap with appropriately feline grace, and looked up at Ami, who absently continued to scratch behind Len’s ears.

“Yeah, yeah. We getting out of here?”

“Wait! Um, before you go…” Satsuki rubbed her hands nervously.

“Yeah?”

“Can I... Um, that is, I heard what you were saying to Tohno about his brother, and I was wondering if I could, maybe, um… Would you listen while I tell you a story?”

* * *

It was dark. There was really no other way to describe it. There was really nothing to describe, except the darkness.

Shiki, nonetheless, took a step forward into the void, and his foot collided with the thin air as if it were solid stone.

“This doesn’t seem like I’ve woken up.”

“Because you haven’t.” Akiha furrowed her brow, and Shiki felt a storm prickling at the back of his mind. Until now, she’d been as stubbornly confident as she always was, even if a few of the things he did had thrown her for a loop momentarily; finding herself in these lightless depths instead of the waking world was completely beyond the scope of her plans, and she hadn’t the slightest clue what was happening.

“Do you have a better idea of what this is? It’s your dream, after all.”

Shiki tapped his foot on the not-ground, listened to the sound it made - a soft, clicking ‘tmp’ sound that dredged out memories of summer days and boots on garden tile.

“Maybe. This must be…” he muttered.

Akiha followed with uncommon quietude as Shiki strode forwards, deeper into the dark.

Godrays, as if through a forest’s leaves, flickered into being and disappeared again as they walked. The sound of their steps remained the same garden tile tapping, save for when it became crunching leaves for a single step. Warm summer air drifted past and gave way again to a sense of nothing that was neither hot nor cold.

Chirp, chirp, chirp, cried cicada shells that did not dwell within this dream, echoing from far away and twenty years ago.

They passed through the darkness, which parted as if curtains revealing a ghost-lit stage. Black-on-black and invisible, if it wasn’t just their eyes playing tricks on them anyway.

“I thought I’d find you here,” said his nostalgic voice.

“I should’ve known you’d be here,” said her bitter voice.

There in the clearing surrounded by Stygian trees, fallen with the pitch-black leaves across the coal-dark grass, was a red kimono decorated in patterns of pale spider-lilies.

The sound of crunching leaves echoed into the emptiness once and again, and Shiki knelt in front of the kimono. He reached out his hand while more leaves crunched behind him, and the kimono gingerly reached out its own. Shiki grasped it tightly.

“It’s okay. You can keep dreaming,” he told it, in a kindly whisper “It wasn’t your dream that we were trapped in. I’m really grateful for everything - I wouldn’t be here if not for you.”

Akiha came into view, strode past the tatter, and stared out into the forest beyond. The threadbare dross twitched as if turning to look at her, and Shiki shook his head.

“... I don’t like this place. It’s not as if I’ve ever nosed around in your mind, but I didn’t think you had a graveyard like this in that head of yours.”

“There’s a lot of strange places in my mind, I think. Even I don’t know about all of them.”

“Hm.” Akiha continued to stare out into the darkness, and continued to refuse to look at the red cloth. More than this place, she hated what dwelled in it - that was the feeling Shiki got. And more than that, she hated the memories and feelings it drew out of her.

… She was a little girl again, stumbling through the forest with her family. She was happy again, playing without care, yet to find the bitter aftertaste that would linger the rest of her life. She was innocent again, and she was helpless and about to die. She was helpless again, and someone else was dead.

Chirp, chirp, cried the cicadas as they gathered around the largest of the cast-off shells. Waaah, waah, cried the little girl, as she poured herself into that great shell.

The cast-off shell, the cadaver left behind, Shiki Tohno gripped Shiki Nanaya’s hand a little harder.

“You know already, don’t you? I wasn’t too well-made, so you always were smarter and stronger than me, even if there’s not much of it left. If it were me, you’d have to tell me, but I don’t have to tell you. She still loves you, same as she always did. She’s just… well, you know how Akiha is. Everything’s her responsibility - everything’s her fault - and she hates remembering the times she failed. And, y’know, she just can’t ever be honest about things.”

Nanaya nodded slowly.

“I’m glad. You just rest now, okay?”

Tohno let Nanaya’s hand slip from his as he stood up. He nodded down at the kimono, a dull formless red against the forest floor, and walked past.

“I know you’d refuse, but I’d give it all back to you if I could. Thank you for everything!” He shouted over his shoulder, “Sweet dreams!”

Akiha did not follow him. Akiha stayed where she was, and continued to stare silently into the darkness. And then….

Akiha finally turned around. She bowed forwards, arms stiff. And -

“You said you were sorry that you couldn’t be a real brother to me, but it was always, always me who wasn’t a real sister to you,” she whispered, “And I’m sorry that I couldn’t save you.”

\- did not cry. No tears fell from her face, or splashed on the ground. If there were streaks across her face, if the taste of salt lingered - well, that must have been something else.

_ But you did, didn’t you? _

Akiha bowed her head a little lower.

“‘Every second is precious,’” she quoted. And then, she turned and walked away.

Somewhere in the darkness, a tiger rumbled.

Shiki was waiting at the very edge for her, a sullen look in his blue, blue eyes.

“I’m sorry I’m not him,” he said, “I’m sorry he had to die for me to live. I’m sorry that -”

“Shut up. There’s a ring on your finger that isn’t on his, no? I’m not that much of a fool.”

“Right,” Shiki smiled, and he rubbed his wedding band fondly. Akiha raised her hand, back towards her face, and stared at its mirror image with a faraway look in her eyes.

For a moment, Shiki knew exactly who he was, a rarity in his life.

For a moment, Akiha was under no illusion, stripped to the honest bone.

_ I always was a heavy sleeper, wasn’t I? _ Someone thought.

And, for a moment, there was only one person in the dream.

And then there were none, and the dream went on without them.

That forest of the lost, that grove where shadows of abandoned and forgotten things gathered, continued to wilt in peaceful silence, deep underground.


End file.
